Aneurin Bevan University Health Board: an animated campaign that reached UK cinema screens

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board needed people to stop defaulting to A&E for things a pharmacy or a phone call could sort out. So we made a bilingual animated campaign explaining exactly where to go instead, and it ran on UK cinema screens.

The outcome

A 42 second animated film walking through five ways to get the right care: pharmacy, GP, NHS 111, a Minor Injuries Unit, or 999 and The Grange University Hospital for a genuine emergency. Delivered as a full bilingual production, in English and Welsh, and BBFC classified for cinema release through Digital Cinema Media, the company that supplies advertising to UK cinema screens.

The challenge

The Grange University Hospital had just opened, centralising emergency and specialist care for Gwent and South Powys onto one site. The Health Board's other hospitals kept 24 hour Minor Injuries Units, but lost their full A&E departments. Overnight, a lot of people's habits were wrong: the nearest hospital was no longer necessarily the right one, and A&E was never the right first call for most of what sends people there.

The Health Board already had a five tier, colour coded system explaining where to go for what, used across posters and printed patient booklets. What it needed was something that could hold a room's attention for under a minute and say the same thing without anyone having to read it.

Help us, help you. Choose the right place the first time.

Our approach

One cast, five services, no reading required. We built a single cast of characters, a cross section of Gwent itself, and matched each of them to the service that actually fits their situation, using the Health Board's own colour coding throughout so the film reinforces material people had already seen on posters and leaflets.

111 for when you genuinely don't know. Older residents calling NHS 111 got their own beat in the film, since knowing when to ask for help rather than guess is half the message.

Minor Injuries Units get equal billing with A&E. Broken bones, cuts and bites go to a Minor Injuries Unit, not automatically to the Grange, and the film says so plainly rather than assuming people already know the difference.

Built for a cinema screen from the start. Delivered as a 2K digital cinema package with full 5.1 surround audio and BBFC classification, alongside the online and social cuts, so the same campaign could run in front of an actual cinema audience across Gwent.

What it does for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

A single piece of film that carries the Health Board's own colour-coded guidance to a mass audience, in both languages, in under a minute, wherever people actually see it: on a cinema screen before a film starts, on social media, or shared by the Health Board's own communications team. One consistent message, reinforcing what was already on the posters, instead of competing with it.

Credits

• Client: Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
• Studio: Alchemy
• Languages: English and Welsh, full separate productions
• Distribution: BBFC classified, UK cinema screens via Digital Cinema Media, plus online and social cuts