Ogilvy Health UK is partnering with charity Emmie’s Books in order to launch a Better With Books initiative for Childhood Cancer Day.
The campaign launches across VOD, social and DOOH on 15 February, and asks for donations to help provide more books for children.
The charity works closely with hospitals including Great Ormond Street, The Queen Elizabeth and The Royal Marsden in order to donate books to seriously ill children.
The creative features hand drawn animations and illustrations to help drive awareness about the escapism that reading provides for children recuperating in the alien surroundings often far away from home.
It comes as a study by the National Academy of Sciences has revealed that reading books boosts positive emotions and decreases pain in hospitalised children. It created the poignant animation film with Savage Films and Ritmika Audio Arts.
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“The film acts a stark reminder that creativity and stories can have for children, society’s most vulnerable. The ordeal of battling cancer at such a young age can take its toll, but through the power of imagination they can escape, if only for a few moments,” said Ogilvy Health UK executive creative director John McPartland.
Emmie’s book founder and mother of cancer survivor Emmie, Lyndsay M said: “Reading provided us with a much needed sense of normality when Emmie was going through treatment. Reading stories before bedtime as a family transported us to a world where (for that small moment in time) everything felt normal again”.
Savage film director Alex Black said: “I became a father not too long and I can’t imagine how hard to tackle a serious illness with a small child.”
“I was keen to help expand Emmie’s story further and together with animator Daniel Prothero, we wanted to show both sides: how intimidating a hospital can be to a child, and how a book can offer escapism into a world of wonders”.
“We hope our work can help more kids get through tough times.”
