The Campaign

We met the terminally ill and their families through the IAPC network and unearthed the insight: Palliative care helpspeople accept death, even laugh about it leading to the idea of the Last Laugh – A series of stand-up comedy shows performed by the terminally ill for doctors, to break the taboo. Palliative care counselors and India’s best comedians joined hands to screen, train and support these patients. The doctors were loving what they came for India's best comedians perform and then, a first-of-its-kind experience surprised them when terminally ill patients performed stand-up comedy and taught them to laugh at death. So comedy demonstrated that palliative care helps the terminally ill get comfortable with death, even joke about it. And comedy helped break the taboo – if these patients staring at death can joke about it, then why can’t it be discussed.

Creative Execution

The biggest execution challenge was working with terminally ill patients. So, palliative care counselors and India’s best comedians screened them and spent weeks with them, converting experiences with death/dying into stand-up comedy. Two patients did not make it on stage, passing away before or during the campaign. A comedian ‘took a break’ two weeks into working with a patient. An agency member is now seeking therapy. But our patients made it possible – moving us with their courage and flooring us with their performances. The show was then performed at corporates, and then on radio where it aired as a week-long special on India's largest radio network. And finally, on television as a 30-minute comedy show on India's largest news network. Giving the live experience an opportunity to reach millions.

Seeing the terminally ill laugh at death, not just doctors but all Indians questioned the ingrained fear of discussing death, and palliative care truly entered the Indian lexicon. The shows trended #1 all-India on Twitter, #3 on YouTube, went viral on Facebook with 36,000 shares, became a viral sensation on WhatsApp (India’s #1 mobile-messaging platform), inspired India’s largest zero-cost media partnerships (other than entertainment), made it to the front pages of India’s leading newspapers, aired as a 30-minute show on India’s leading TV news network, aired as a week-long special on India’s leading radio network, and even spread globally through coverage on BBC World News. Together, reaching over 80% Indian doctors and garnering over 3 million dollars of earned media, 300 million impressions, and 3 million video views. All with <$10,000 of total spends. Importantly, a country that was scared to even talk about death is now laughing at it.

In a country where even talking about death is taboo, the terminally ill performed a series of stand-up comedy shows for doctors. These shows for doctors formed the heart of the campaign. Each event was a stand-up comedy show featuring India’s best comedians and surprising the doctors mid-way with a first-of-its-kind experience when our unlikely comedians were introduced. The show demonstrated that palliative care can help the terminally ill be comfortable with death, even joke about it. And ensured that our audience will remember palliative care and the Indian Association of Palliative Care for a long time to come.

After IAPC’s ‘Last Words’ campaign in 2016, consumer awareness of palliative care in urban India is >15%, doctor awareness is 100%, doctor conviction is >80%, still access to palliative care is 1%. Increasing access necessitated breaking the taboo and ensuring that doctors, terminally ill patients and their families were all willing to discuss death and palliative care. Medical representatives can’t influence doctors to break the taboo but peer-to-peer conversations could. So, when doctors attended these comedy shows together, and then discussed death and palliative care with each other, it broke the taboo permanently. And when the shows received publicity, even making it to television, the doctors felt they had been a part of this campaign, inspiring them to become even stronger advocates of palliative care.