Sickle cell disease patients' stories are often unseen, misunderstood, and dismissed by healthcare providers, partly because the condition's impact is invisible. Working with Novartis through Havas Mango over 2 months for Sickle Cell Awareness Month 2021, our challenge was to create empathy and understanding where traditional educational materials had failed.
I brought immersive environment design and storytelling expertise to help a traditional campaign team think experientially. We transformed four life-defining moments from patient Phillip's real story into a theatrical experience where five healthcare providers witnessed firsthand how sickle cell disease interrupts life—school crises, travel emergencies, family gatherings, and near-death hospital visits.
Using projection mapping, practical effects, and rotating environments, we created an intimate theatrical format that culminated with Phillip revealing these were his true experiences. The project won a Clio Bronze in 2022 and became a model for invisible condition awareness campaigns.
Five healthcare professionals entered believing they would observe fictional scenarios—unaware they were about to experience the raw truth of one man's survival story.
A promising student's future crumbles as invisible pain strikes without warning. Healthcare providers watched helplessly as education, ambition, and hope dissolved into weeks of debilitating agony.
The airplane cabin becomes a prison of pain as a crisis strikes mid-flight. Healthcare providers felt the helplessness of being trapped at 30,000 feet—no escape, no familiar doctors, no way to explain the invisible agony to strangers who can't understand why someone "looks fine" when it's not.
Holiday joy turns to impossible choice—seek help and ruin the gathering, or endure excruciating pain to preserve precious family moments. Love becomes a burden when your body betrays celebration.
"You look fine"—three words that nearly killed him. Healthcare providers witnessed the moment when medical dismissal led to writing a goodbye letter to a young son, with death looming.
Phillip steps forward, alive and real. The fictional patient becomes flesh and blood—every moment of suffering they witnessed was his reality. Silence. Tears. Then, the conversations that change how medicine is practiced.
Need experiences that create lasting change in how people think and act?
