Sylvester Cancer Center TV Spots

When the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, a world-class facility affiliated with the University of Miami, wanted a new approach for its television spots, its agency, the Weinbach Group, came to Common Machine. 

The job: Compose a series of TV commercials reminding the South Florida marketplace that Sylvester, despite its preeminence as a regional research facility, should also be the first treatment option for anyone diagnosed with the disease — and do it in a way that didn’t rely on scare tactics, visuals of imposing machines, or other elements usually associated with medical advertising. Sylvester wanted six 30-second spots, each touting the benefits of a different treatment area: lung cancer, breast cancer, stem-cell transplantation, radiation oncology, Nanoknife technology, and “Ask for Ana,” Sylvester’s in-house patient services and counseling program.

After consulting with our client and interviewing the researchers and doctors at Sylvester, we came up with a novel strategy: Place the specialists at Sylvester in a clean studio environment, have them tell us about the things that make Sylvester unique, but do it the way they might tell a neighbor — using a more conversational style, substituting analogies for medical jargon — then couple that with striking b-roll footage driving their main point home. 

The six commercials (seven, if you count the Spanish-language version of the “Ask for Ana” spot) will air continuously in South Florida throughout the first six months of 2012.