Describe any restrictions or regulations regarding Healthcare/RX/Pharma communications in your country/region including:

In Japan, the following expressions are restricted regarding Health & Wellness communications: - Messaging that promises the effects of a product to the audience - Depictions that make the product seem better than the actual specifications and can easily cause miscomprehension

Describe the target audience and why your work is relevant to them.

This film has the potential to change the fundamental idea of cancer treatment being a lonely fight by conveying that cancer is an illness that should be overcome with everyone, with the support of those in the same situation or from one’s family.

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

This is a story of cancer patients awaiting their treatment, where their emotions are illustrated as a marathon that suddenly begins with no start line. Women in different places suddenly receive a marathon bib along with their medical examination results. (The figures on their bib show the yearly number of new cancer patients in Japan) They hear a start pistol being fired, and head outside without knowing where to go. The women running in empty roads depict the loneliness of nobody understanding their pain. But as they keep running, they encounter other runners and realize they are not the only ones fighting cancer. They also see their families, doctors, friends supporting them from the roadside. This leads to the message from “tomosnote” (Aflac’s supporting community for cancer patients) that cancer treatment is not a lonely path and should be overcome together with one’s family and those in the same situation.

Cultural/Context information for the jury

Every 1 in 2 people have the chance of getting cancer, and it is now the top cause of death in Japan. According to research by National Cancer Center Japan, 75% of cancer patients feel that cancer treatment is a very lonely path and suffer from psychological stress. Aflac, a cancer insurance company took notice of this situation and developed and launched “tomosnote”, a community supporting cancer patients in September 2018. This platform allows patients that are suffering from the loneliness to connect and share their experience to relieve their troubles and worries of cancer treatment.