Stop-motion animation flips death perceptions and sparks action

An ad campaign by Palliative Care Queensland, which aimed to make death less scary, has reported extraordinary results.

The Cassette, a stop-motion animated campaign by Palliative Care Queensland and Cocogun.

An advertising campaign to make death less scary and improve access to palliative care services achieved “extraordinary results”, changing perceptions and driving action around end-of-life care options.

The Cassette, a stop-motion animated campaign by Palliative Care Queensland, drove a 10 per cent increase in discussions about dying and 7.6 per cent rise in people interested in learning about palliative care.

The film, which was created by independent agency Cocogun, tells the story of a man who faces death on his own terms, which in his case is with a rousing rendition of the classic Pixies song,

Here Comes Your Man, accompanied by the Grim Reaper on drums.

The campaign was part of a broader push by the Queensland government to improve access to palliative care and aimed to help increase people’s knowledge about options and drive them to take action.

The film outperformed metrics with double the results of an effective ad campaign, significantly driving six out of ten viewers to share the film with others, said market research agency Hoop Group CEO Liz Farquharson.

“The creative execution was able to allow people to reframe fear and by making the unspeakable, speakable but it also helped people take action. It wasn’t just simply that this resonated with people, it actually was able to generate behavioural change.

“People might say they might take action after seeing an ad, but 61 per cent said it had changed their view of dying, while eight out of 10 agreed it was a great way to highlight a difficult topic, and 76 per cent said it made them fear death less. Which is massive. It was able to do something unique there, not just by making people aware, it was actually able to drive action to quite high levels. More than half, 56 per cent of the people said they would share the ad with others.

“I’ve been doing this for 17 years, and I haven’t seen that. The ad was able to literally flip loss aversion into action,” she said. “In terms of action, it’s triple what I would expect on a good ad. It was a thought starter, a reframer, and a conversation starter, which is that whole nudge effect ultimately,” Ms Farquharson said.

Cocogun managing director Chiquita King said the work highlighted the importance of bravery in creativity.

“Safe is not best. Sometimes you just need to do something that has a universal human insight that people can connect to and celebrate that in the most distinctive way possible.”

Palliative Care Queensland chief executive officer Louise O’Neill said the campaign drove a 36 per cent increase in traffic to the website and helped kickstart conversations among Queenslanders.

“We get a lot of comments from people who say, I wish I had that when my mum was dying, or my dad or my brother,” she said.

“And others tell us they’ve used it as an icebreaker to have conversations in the family.

It really is about helping people to have these conversations and grow community education.”