Marathon. 


Ronald McDonald Foundation builds houses next to children hospitals, so parents can stay close to their kids while they undergo medical treatment. The first house was built in Krakow. Our aim was to raise funds for building a second house, this time in Warsaw.

Client

  • Ronald McDonald
  • Foundation

My Role

Concept

Art Direction

Media


Film



Other People

  • Michał Sabliński. dir
  • Zuza Duchniewska. ecd
  • Mateusz Gaca. cw

Agency

  • DDB Warsaw

Date

  • December 2019



The loneliness of the long distance runner.

No hospital beds. No bald heads. Those were our

no-no's from the moment we first faced this brief. Instead, we decided to use an analogy: how fighting a disease is like running a marathon. The effort, the loneliness, the struggle. And how family is the only thing that can keep these kids running.

—  Fighting a chronic disease is like a marathon. Closeness of family helps defeat it.

We open in a completely, absolutely,

empty city.

That's how we pitched our film to the client,

it was the exact striking visual we were looking for. Shooting in Warsaw was out of the question: picture minus 10°C in winter and a boy in shorts. It appeared that our solution was 1000 miles away, in Bulgaria. We didn't make Sofia empty, there was no need. We just found a studio with an already empty city there.

Results: when rational meets emotional.

Thanks to this film, RMDF collected 10% more money than the previous year: an amazing outcome. But also great was seeing the client cry when we first showed her the edit. That was a very human type of KPI.