Glivec case: Cancer Patients’ Aid Association, NGO that fought Novartis favoured by ad agencies

An old friend of the advertising industry has been all over the news this week: the Cancer Patients’ Aid Association (CPAA), an NGO that fought the Novartis patent case in the Supreme Court. For the ad world, it’s probably been a bit of a shock. “What, theyfight patents?! And design insurance policies?” are the likely reactions. Because, for many years, CPAA has been the “client” of choice for advertising creatives who have an idea for an award-winning anti-smoking ad. In 2002, Ogilvy & Mather won two Gold Lions at the Cannes advertising festival for Second-hand smoke kills, a CPAA ad created by none other than chain-smoking creative director Piyush Pandey. That “dead horse” ad was among the 50 most-awarded print ads that year. The next year, O&M picked up three more Cannes Lions for ads for CPAA.


CPAA founder YK Sapru quite understood the way the scam industry worked. Even though his organisation has always been more focused on aid, rehabilitation and care than anti-smoking campaigns, he wasn’t going to look a gift ad in the mouth. In that sense, he was probably the scam-chasing industry’s dream client: one who didn’t mind signing off on an ad that had nothing to do with his company, and that didn’t even make a pretence at trying to achieve its marketing objectives. Unlike certain car companies, shall we say.