• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

In Chile, the federal government now offers “Explicit Health Guarantees” to ensure its citizens of “access, coverage, and timely treatment for priority diseases,” Raimundo Undurraga, chief creative officer of VML Chile, tells Marketing Daily.

One of those diseases is rheumatoid arthritis (RA), for which the new laws reduce the cost of medications by 90% -- or even provide them free. Chile also offers various therapy options, including clay molding.

VML cites the latter as the core of “Don’t Stop Motion,” a government campaign that “highlights the transformative power” of the law relative to  RA.

“Don’t Stop Motion” is an animated short film documenting a crafts teacher’s fight against RA. The teacher and other characters were co-created by RA patients themselves as part of their medical therapy, with stop-motion animation done by Punk Robot, winner of a 2014 Oscar for its short “Bear Story.”

“There’s no cure for rheumatoid arthritis,” says a graphic at the end of the film. “But physiotherapy with molding clay helps soften the pain.”

The collaboration with Punk Robot “was intended to celebrate art as both a therapeutic tool and a vital part of the country’s cultural heritage,” Undurraga says. Therapeutic sessions, conducted with the Fundación Me Muevo RA organization, “uniquely integrated physiotherapy into the cinematic process, creating a ‘direct’ experience where the craft itself became the focal point.”

“This experiential approach fostered an emotional connection with the participants and underscored the initiative’s transformative potential,” he adds.

Since premiering a year ago on the web (where you can see the film in its original Spanish version), the site has averaged more than 80,000 daily visits, says Undurraga. That’s been helped by recent expansion of marketing efforts to the general public via TV, digital screens, social media and public relations, he notes, follows the film’s initial distribution to the RA community through such government channels as screens in healthcare centers, outreach to patients from the foundation, and other platforms.

In its own short film about the making of “Don’t Stop Motion,“ VML says the film “narrates the story of [RA patients’] own lives, shaped by their own hands, showcasing their struggles, but above all, their fight to keep moving,” calling the initiative “an activation that turns therapy into art, and pain into movement.”

“The overarching objective of the campaign is to raise awarenesses about the diseases covered by the [new law] and crucially, to shed light on rheumatoid arthritis,” states Undurraga, “a common yet often hidden condition [whose sufferers] previously lacked access to treatment and medication benefits.”

More than 200,000 Chileans are said to live with RA. 

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