‘Life stripped away’ - the MND Association

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a devastating, fatal, rapidly progressing disease that currently has no cure. The MND Association came to Pablo through a pitch with the ask: get more people to consider supporting them.

But charity is a crowded space. Fewer of us are donating. And when empathy is one of the biggest drivers of consideration, simply telling people about MND wasn’t enough. We needed to build real understanding of what living with MND means, cut through the familiar, and create an emotional connection strong enough to make people care.

Our pitch winning idea ‘Life stripped away’, is based on the visceral reality of those living with MND; an active mind full of passion and personality, trapped inside an increasingly inactive body. With a third of people diagnosed with MND dying within a year, the work brings the Association’s brand essence, ‘Every day matters’, to life—connecting audiences with the brutal reality of a disease.

Working collaboratively with the Association, four contributors, all people living with MND, lead the storytelling throughout the campaign.

In our 90” launch film we tell the story of Jaki, a performer and singer from Brighton from first symptoms, through to her current lived reality. The film honours Jaki’s own voice throughout by using an original recording from one of her performances, to her current voice-banked voice. This voice, created through eye-gaze technology, also features in radio.

The campaign also features three more contributors in striking OOH with its ‘stripped away’ treatment; Lorraine from London, a dancehall lover, Grandma Tahira from Leeds, a keen gardener, and Steve from London, a music producer and former session drummer. Each person is at a different stage of the disease, but all share the same devastating reality: being increasingly removed from the lives they love.