TBWA\India awarded prestigious Lions Health Grand Prix for Good for ‘Blink To Speak’
TBWA|India has pulled off the first major coup of this year’s Cannes Festival of Creativity winning the Lions Health Grand Prix For Good for their “Blink To Speak” integrated campaign for the Asha EK Hope Foundation.
Blink To Speak is the world’s first eye language for patients who have an alert mind but a paralysed body. Using the power of eyes, the team at TBWA devised a way to help these patients. Blink To Speak uses 50 simple eye movements to build an extensive eye language. They assigned simple messages commonly needed by patients to basic combinations of eye movements. They created very easy to use sets of eye actions using the 8 alphabets of the eye language – Shut, Blink, Left, Right, Up, Down, Roll and Wink.
The Lions Health Grand Prix for Good is open to Gold Lion-winning entries ineligible for a Grand Prix in their section.
Health Grand Prix for Good Jury President Rajesh Mirchandani, Chief Communications Officer, United Nations Foundation, said, “The award is designed to recognise creative achievements that promote the advance of social good and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To do this, we must come up with ideas that are scalable and reach the furthest left behind. We got chills when we saw ‘Blind to Speak’. We were impressed with its simplicity and its ability to inspire and empower.”
Parixit Bhattacharya, chief creative officer at TBWA\India said: “To win the Grand Prix For Good at Cannes is testament to the power of this solution and is true to Cannes’ reputation of awarding creativity that makes a real difference. We accept this honour on behalf of Neurogen and Asha Ek Hope Foundation who were always passionate and supportive throughout the process helping to bring this intellectual property to life.”
Blink To Speak also picked up a Gold Lion in the Pharma Lions category.
The Healthcare Agency of the Year was awarded to Havas Lynx; second to Area 23, an FCB Health Network Company; and third to Langland.
The Healthcare Network of the Year was awarded to FCB Health; second to Havas Health & You; and third to Publicis Health.
The Young Lions Health winners were also announced during the Awards Show. The winners were: Gerardo Saavedra, Felipa, Mexico and Emiliano Salmon, Felipa, Mexico.
5 Comments
This is a wonderful idea. Wow. Like the immunity charm from last year this can have a positive impact on the lives of people who cannot communicate.
Juries need to see if work like this is done. Or done for the award shows alone.
The best thing to happen to ALS after the ice bucket challenge. Scam is an epidemic, especially at Cannes.
This looks fake, the book looks like It is a sole copy and falling apart.
I would imagine that if this was a workable solution for ALS patients, one of the many highly qualified scientists and medical professionals working in that space would have thought of it a long time ago. It’s hardly an innovative idea.
Shameful – again – that Cannes is supporting this kind of juvenile project.