Montefiore Health System makes patients into heroes

I love this new video ad for Montefiore Health System in the Bronx.  Montefiore is a national leader in transplants, so they are promoting that with a Hero’s Journey story focused on a real patient, Paul Rivera. 

The video begins with five friends talking in a diner. One of them (played by Paul Giamatti) begins telling Paul Rivera’s story, starting with him as a slightly fiendish kid growing up in New York, to the military, to a respectable working class job. 

And then he contracts pulmonary fibrosis.  He is unable to get a lung transplant. It is a death sentence.  Until…Montefiore comes through and secures a donor lung. He gets the transplant, has a new lease on life, and lives happily ever after.  The spot ends with the words, “Everyone Loves a Comeback.”

Indeed, we do!  The video doesn’t talk much about Montefiore, really.  It’s more about Mr. Rivera.  Nonetheless, Montefiore clearly is driving the action in the spot. Everyone sees themselves as a hero, in a way, which makes it easy to put yourself in his shoes and imagine how much Montefiore meant to him. 

Simple but clever storytelling, highly emotional without being maudlin, and establishes a unique identity for the Montefiore brand.