"What is your purpose?"
It was a great question to start a conference designed to "celebrate the life-changing creativity of the world's best health care communications." The event was Lions Health, and the speaker at the opening session was Jim Stengel, the legendary former Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble, who is an author and thought leader on the idea of driving business success by staying true to ideals.
The question of purpose provided a great frame for the conversations that took place over the next two days as communicators, marketers, and advertisers in the health and health care industries shared ideas and honored the campaigns chosen through an intense jury process as the most effective communications helping drive health care forward.
I had the honor of chairing the jury that selected winner of the Lions Health-UN Foundation Grand Prix for Good, an award created to honor, and inspire, the best in creative health communications for social good. The Grand Prix went to a campaign whose purpose was clear: to inspire conversations that prompt people to take ownership of their own health and wellbeing and to teach people to recognize potential symptoms of cancer and seek treatment while the disease is treatable. The honor went to an engagement campaign called 'Cancertweets,' created by Leo Burnett Colombia for the League Against Cancer in Bogata.
This kind of campaign -- one that leverages health communications for social good -- is closely aligned with the mission of the United Nations, which has been described as working to bridge the gap between the world as it is and the world as we want it to be. Let's collectively answer the question, "What is our purpose?," and let's work together for future we want. One easy way to start is to help the UN shape international development priorities for 2016-2030. Go to MYworld2015.org, and vote for the issues you think should be at the top of the global development agenda.