The stripped back realities of MND

Created by Pablo London and directed by Ben Liam Jones through Merman, the 95-second spot features Jaki, a performer and singer from Brighton who we first see treading the boards in the theatre. Soon, though, she finds that she is dropping coffee cups and falling over, before a sombre doctor informs her that she has MND. From there, Jaki's life, and the life of her husband, Steve, changes forever.

Called Life Stripped Away, the campaign is Pablo's first for the charity and shows how an MND diagnosis can strip away the life you love living. With a third of people diagnosed with MND dying within a year, the work brings the Association’s brand essence, ‘Every day matters’, to life, connecting audiences with the brutal reality of a disease that can trap an active mind inside an increasingly inactive body.

"Meeting Jaki, listening to her and helping to tell her story was one of the most humbling experiences of my life."

The film uses a first person perspective, with Jones wanting to connect viewers with how MND crept into Jaki’s life. Consulting with Jaki and her husband Steve, who has become Jaki’s carer, Jones captures the emotional truth of these moments with intimacy and honesty, with the film honouring Jaki’s own voice throughout by using an original recording from one of her performances, as well as her current voice-banked speech.

"Meeting Jaki, listening to her and helping to tell her story was one of the most humbling experiences of my life," said Jones. "I've known [Pablo Creative Directors] Matt [Fitch] and Mark [Lewis] for years and have always loved working with them, but this project felt more special and more important than anything we've done before. The result feels genuinely different from anything I've seen in the charity sector, and I'm incredibly proud to have been part of it."

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For the out of home and digital campaign, photographer Emma Hardy worked with three contributors all with diverging passions [above], capturing each contributor's identities and lives, keeping them at the centre of every image. Each person is at a different stage of the disease, but all share the same devastating reality: being increasingly removed from the lives they love.

“This campaign is unapologetically hard hitting as I don’t think there is any other way to tell the story about MND and the devastation it causes."

“I have never - until now - encountered such courage, grace, humour, spirit and brilliance as shown by Tahira, Lorraine and Steve," said Hardy. "I wanted to howl for them and their families - everyone so brave and dignified - but more than that I was inspired, and uplifted by their incredible generosity and trust. May a cure be found soon for this dreadful disease.”

“This campaign is unapologetically hard hitting as I don’t think there is any other way to tell the story about MND and the devastation it causes," added Ben Kay, Founding Partner at Pablo. "Everyone at Pablo has been both humbled and truly inspired by all those involved from the MND community and given genuine hope that the work will contribute to the MND association achieving their ultimate goal of finding a cure for this horrific disease.”