Cannes Lions 2024: Health & Wellness, Lions Health Grand Prix for Good winners /

Dramamine’s The Last Barf Bag has won this year’s Health & Wellness Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. 

The campaign, created by agency FCB Chicago, honoured sick bags with a 13-minute documentary, a one-day pop-up exhibition of rare collectors bags in New York, a one-of-one puffer jacket made from barf bag designs, and a dedicated website where people could buy repurposed barf bags containing a sample box of different Dramamine medicines to counter motion sickness.

Speaking about the winner, the Health & Wellness jury president, Wendy Chan (Health Creative Lead, APAC, Edelman), said that, given the grim state of the world, making people laugh is a smart move, and she noted a trend of more and more brands not taking themselves too seriously. ‘So they are more like people,’ she said. Chen added that the quality of Health & Wellness marketing continues to improve but that beautiful craft is no longer enough, ‘We are looking for something that can change behaviour.’

Speaking to Contagious, she said: ‘Wellness has become a very competitive area — it is more competitive than a lot of FMCG. Tapping into culture or using humour is a very good way to connect with consumers.’

When we interviewed FCB Chicago about the Dramamine campaign, CSO Mollie Partesotti revealed that it was all part of the healthcare brand’s efforts to earn market share within the larger and more lucrative nausea market.

Speaking about the boldness behind heroing ‘barf’ and possibly turning people off, she added: ‘Our challenge isn’t rejection, people aren't going to reject Dramamine. They’re going to be indifferent or not give a fuck. When we’re trying to go from motion sickness to nausea, how are we going to get there? By latching onto culture.’

Michael CeraVe for Cerave by Ogilvy PR, New York

Fit My Feet for Buckaroo Footware by McCann, Gurugram

Protectasbih for Saudia Airlines by Leo Burnett, Jeddah / Saatchi & Saatchi ME, Dubai

Child Wedding Cards for UN Women by Impact BBDO, Dubai

Paper Organs for Taiwan Organ Sharing Registry And Patient Autonomy Promotion Center by Leo Burnett, Taipei

On top of its Gold in Health & Wellness, Child Wedding Cards for UN Women by Impact BBDO, Dubai picked up the Lions Health Grand Prix for Good.

Pakistan has the sixth highest number of girls married before the age of 18 in the world. According to Unicef, the country has nearly 19 million child brides. To enact real change, the team created invitations to fictional child weddings drawn by young girls, ranging in age from five to 15.

These invitations were sent to Members of the National Assembly of Pakistan, and other leaders and influencers in Pakistan. The campaign was also promoted with a short film and social posts. More than a dozen lawmakers joined the cause: in a session at the National Assembly of Pakistan, leaders held up the Child Wedding Cards to demand a law be put into place to raise the minimum marriageable age to 18. On 7 March 2022, the Federal Islamic Court made a landmark judgment that a minimum age of 18 for marriage is not against the injunctions of Islam, paving the way for the state to raise the minimum age.

David Ohana, the UN Foundations’ chief communications and marketing offficer, and president of this year’s Lions Health Grand Prix for Good jury, told Contagious: ‘What was so inspiring about this piece of work is, in a time when there's so much focus on high tech and AI, campaigns with budgets, wizardry, special effects, this was just so simple.’

As for the landmark judgement and path to raising the age, he added: ‘Even if this campaign played the smallest part of that larger impact then that still was profound. And even by further amplifying this campaign, it has a ripple effect where some other countries who are facing similar challenges and make the smallest bit of the impact of those countries. If we can show that we can make incremental wins, small victories with seemingly tractable problems, then we can convince, inspire and motivate audiences that actual positive change is possible.’