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Finalist

Ask for Clear

by Havas Lynx for Novartis

Summary of work

Affecting around 125 million people, psoriasis appears as patches of itchy red skin that can cover the entire body. Not only physically debilitating, its appearance is often embarrassing.

The good news – thanks to advances in dermatology, clear skin is now possible. The bad news is that, after years of failed treatments, over half of people with psoriasis don’t believe it’s achievable. Our job was to motivate patients to return to their dermatologist to “ask for clear.”

A 9,000-strong patient survey revealed a range of things people would do if they got clear skin, such as shopping, sunbathing and even streaking. So we wanted our campaign to celebrate the joy of clear skin, in all its forms.

With comedy director Nils Gerbens, we created a series of video stings capturing spontaneous moments of joy. One set at the beach features a man dancing with abandonment in what feels like an ‘unscripted’ video moment.

It worked. As part of the campaign, the sting helped generate 268,586 site visitors in six weeks, with the video in particular generating a 20% conversion rate for people returning to their dermatologist.

Judges’ comments

Ask for Clear was teaching patients how to speak to doctors, empowering them and giving them confidence to own their condition. It had a clearly defined patient group, and the campaign gave patients a bigger ambition. Focused on moments of joy.