We met the terminally ill and their families through the IAPC network and unearthed the insight: Palliative care helps people accept death, even laugh about it.

This led to the idea of the Last Laugh – A series of stand-up comedy shows performed by the terminally ill for their families, friends and doctors, to break the taboo.

Palliative care counsellors and India’s best comedians joined hands to screen, train and support these patients.

The audience were loving what they came for – India's best comedians perform and then, a first-of-its-kind experience surprised them when terminally ill patients performed stand-up comedy and taught them to laugh at death.

So comedy demonstrated that palliative care helps the terminally ill get comfortable with death, even joke about it. And comedy helped break the taboo – if these patients staring at death can joke about it, then why can’t it be discussed.

Overall budget: <$10,000

Activation costs:

- Show/ venue/ equipment costs: Nil. Setup pop-up activations at regular stand-up comedy shows featuring our comics

- Performers: Nil. Professional and terminally ill comedians worked pro-bono

- Training costs: <$500. Comedians and counsellors worked pro-bono. Only local travel/ food expenses.

Film production costs: $4,000. A Nineteen Films worked pro-bono. Only expenses were equipment, crew and meals.

Media costs:

- TV: Nil. Zero-cost media partnership for a 30-minute show.

- Radio: Nil. Zero-cost media partnership for a week-long special across 28 Hindi stations on India’s #1 radio network.

- Digital:

o <$2,000 seed media on Facebook promotions to consumers

o Zero-spend campaign on Twitter, YouTube

o <$2,500 on Facebook promotions micro-targeted to doctors

- Influencers: Nil. But extensive outreach required

- Online PR: Nil. Extensive outreach required

- PR: Nil. Extensive outreach required

So the campaign earned >$3mn of media with spends <$10,000.

The biggest execution challenge was working with terminally ill patients. So, palliative care counsellors and India’s best comedians screened them and spent weeks with them, converting experiences with death/dying into stand-up comedy.

Two patients did not make it on stage, passing away before or during the campaign. A comedian ‘took a break’ two weeks into working with a patient.

An agency member is now seeking therapy. But our patients made it possible – moving us with their courage and flooring us with their performances.

The show was then performed at corporates, and then on radio where it aired as a week-long special on India's largest radio network. And finally, on television as a 30-minute comedy show on India's largest news network.

Giving the live experience an opportunity to reach millions.

Seeing the terminally ill laugh at death, all Indians questioned the ingrained fear of discussing death, and palliative care truly entered the Indian lexicon. In fact, palliative care enquiries through IAPC increased 5-fold.

The shows trended #1 all-India on Twitter, #3 on YouTube, went viral on Facebook with 36,000 shares, became a viral sensation on WhatsApp (India’s #1 mobile-messaging platform), inspired India’s largest zero-cost media partnerships (other than entertainment), made it to the front pages of India’s leading newspapers, aired as a 30-minute show on India’s leading TV news network, aired as a week-long special on India’s leading radio network, and even spread globally through coverage on BBC World News.

Together, garnering over 3 million dollars of earned media, 300 million impressions, and 3 million video views.

Importantly, a country that was scared to even talk about death is now laughing at it.

In a country where even talking about death is taboo, the terminally ill performed a series of stand-up comedy shows.

These formed the heart of the campaign. Each pop-up activation was setup at stand-up comedy shows featuring India’s best comedians and surprising the audience mid-way with a first-of-its-kind experience when our unlikely comedians were introduced.

The activity demonstrated that palliative care can help the terminally ill be comfortable with death, even joke about it. And ensured that our audience will remember palliative care and the Indian Association of Palliative Care for a long time to come.

After IAPC’s ‘Last Words’ campaign in 2016, consumer awareness of palliative care in urban India is >15%, doctor awareness is 100%, doctor conviction is >80%, still access to palliative care is 1%.

Increasing access necessitated breaking the taboo and ensuring that terminally ill patients, their families and doctors were all willing to discuss death and palliative care. So, when the audience attended these comedy shows together, and then discussed death and palliative care with each other, it broke the taboo permanently.

And when the shows received publicity, even making it to television, the audience felt they had been a part of this campaign, inspiring them to become even stronger advocates of palliative care.

Brand background:

IAPC’s ‘Last Words’ campaign in 2016 built awareness on palliative care but there was an opportunity to further drive palliative care access from 1% in 2015.

Cultural Background:

Talking about death is taboo in India.

Problem:

Even the terminally ill and their families don’t discuss death. Let alone use palliative care to make the last days comfortable, leaving them confused and lonely.

In fact, the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2015 ranked India's end-of-life care last among 40 countries, giving a score of 2/5 in public awareness, attributing it partly to reluctance to openly discuss death.

Objective:

To increase palliative care access by breaking the taboo on discussing death.

Challenges:

1. Difficult to break an ingrained cultural taboo.

2. Low budgets, needing to rely on virality and media partnerships–a tough task for a campaign on death.

3. Needed to drive palliative care, not just acceptance of death.