Every year, half a million Indians lose their lives while waiting for an organ. In 2017, only 900-odd cadaveric donations took place, a number that puts the organ donation rate at 0.86 person/million individuals. Fortis Healthcare, in a new campaign, takes up the cause of organ donation in an effort to positively impact the well-being of the nation.
Fortis’s ‘More to Give’ campaign was conceived with the idea to prick the nation’s conscience and help propagate the philosophy of saving lives by championing the cause of organ donation. It seeks to increase donation pledges by changing the perception and behaviour surrounding organ donation.
The solution — to motivate people to donate organs, and learn how their families could find happiness after their loved ones had left — was simple. When you donate your organs, you don’t just save lives but live on in them. A new film unveiled by Fortis Healthcare takes this thought forward. It has been created by Leo Burnett India and released by Madison World.
Speaking about the idea behind the campaign, Jasrita Dhir, Head – Brand, Marketing & CSR, Fortis Healthcare said, “In a nation of a billion-plus individuals, we don’t even have one donor per million. While organ donation has the potential to impact half a million lives directly and many more indirectly, even a single life saved through this campaign makes it a worthy cause. Through this initiative we get to live the Fortis credo of Saving and Enriching Lives.”
Commenting on the newest initiative under the ‘More To Give’ platform, Amit Nandwani, Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett India said, “With most organ donation ads talking about the plight of patients in urgent need of an organ, we wanted to have a larger emotional payoff for the donor in our communication. So, through a simple human story, we tried to portray how an emotional bond can be formed between the donor’s family and the recipient, and how donors can continue to live on in others even after they are gone.”
Director Puneet Prakash said, “When I got the script for this year’s organ donation film, I was really nervous. Since I had directed the film last year and it got a great response overall, there was an unsaid pressure within me to up the ante. The script was great, and after much deliberation over the characters, their world and their emotional thought process, my vision was trusted and I was given complete freedom for the film. For me, the mood of the film was melancholic but at no point I wanted it to be overly dramatic. I looked at giving a realistic and emotional touch to it. I wanted the audience to empathise with the man who meets the parents of the donor and also with the donor’s parents.”