Eli Lilly is continuing its push into corporate ads, running a TV spot that shows the external factors that hinder patients’ attempts to “get better”—and emphasizes the company’s role in developing drugs that “give people a chance at health.”
The ad opens with a shot of two Black men embracing next to a swimming pool. We then see two women in a heated conversation, followed by shots of a man buttoning his shirt in front of the mirror and of a woman with a nasal cannula sitting in a car. Over those shots, which last 10 seconds, a voice-over slowly states, “you’ll get better when you're not blamed for a condition you can't control.”
That opening serves as the blueprint for the rest of the ad. In the next section, the voice-over says, “you’ll get better when your care doesn't depend on your income” over footage of people talking to a doctor and an older Black man sitting alone.
After a shot of a woman holding rehabilitation parallel bars to walk, the voice-over returns to say “you'll get better when your pain isn’t minimized, dismissed, forgotten” over footage of a patient self-administering a painkiller and an older Black woman staring into space.
The final section shows the people introduced earlier in the ad in happier, more positive moments, as well as a shot of a Lilly researcher putting on a lab coat. Over those images, the voice-over says, “we will never stop trying to get better, because when medicine gets better, all of us can get better.” The final frame shows a close-up of the woman holding the bar and the text “Lilly A Medicine Company.”
That tagline, the voice-over and other aspects of the ad echo the TV spot Lilly ran as it was just starting to get into corporate campaigns in the summer of 2021. The tone of the latest ad is more somber, though, with the voice-over slowed down to a crawl and moody, Trent Reznor-esque music replacing the lively orchestral score used in the earlier TV spot.
Lilly is promoting the ad on its socials. The company is varying the text somewhat between the different platforms, running “we’re a medicine company—and a medicine company puts health first” on LinkedIn while focusing on how “health is fundamental to our lives” on Instagram, but using the same kicker. The initial text on both posts explains why Lilly makes “medicines that give people a chance at health.”