Heart Foundation pulled its 'Heartless Words' guilt campaign in three days

Cardiovascular disease kills an average of 51 Australians a day. The Heart Foundation wanted to jolt complacent Australians into Medicare-funded Heart Health Checks it estimated could prevent up to 9,100 deaths over five years, and launched the Host/Havas campaign on Tuesday 28 May 2019.

Have fictional heart-disease victims say the 'heartless words' guilt implies: 'Every time I told you I loved you I was lying — you are not my priority.'

Films showed a mother tucking her child in with 'you are not my priority', a man telling a gathering 'I won't care, because I'll be gone', a hospital-bound mother saying 'it's not just my heart I don't care about'. Backlash came within hours; CEO John Kelly called the work 'shocking' but necessary. That evening the mother-and-child scene was cut; on Friday 31 May the whole campaign was withdrawn, with board chairman Chris Leptos apologising: 'we have listened'.

Withdrawn three days after launch. Chief medical adviser Gary Jennings admitted 'it's gone too far' after the ads 'brought back memories' for people bereaved by heart disease.

On 28 May 2019 the Heart Foundation launched 'Heartless Words', a Host/Havas campaign of films in which people with heart disease tell their families things no one would say — a mother tucking in her child: 'Every time I told you I loved you I was lying — you are not my priority'; a man telling a gathering: 'in time this family will be filled with loss. But I won't care, because I'll be gone.' The point was to shake Australians out of complacency and drive Medicare-funded Heart Health Checks, estimated to prevent up to 9,100 deaths over five years.

Other scenes included a hospital-bound mother telling her child 'It's not just my heart I don't care about'. The backlash was immediate, with people calling the campaign 'breathtakingly offensive' and 'awful'. In the hours after launch chief executive John Kelly defended it as 'shocking' but necessary to kick off a conversation about heart disease. That evening Heart Foundation Victoria chief executive Kellie-Ann Jolly apologised 'if we've caused offence to anyone' and the scene with the mother and child was cut — but the rest of the video kept running.

On Friday 31 May the foundation changed course again and pulled the advertisements from all media and social media. Board chairman Chris Leptos apologised 'to all the people who have been offended by our campaign', and chief medical adviser Professor Gary Jennings told the ABC the campaign 'brought back memories to people' who had lost someone to heart disease: 'It was very well-meant, but clearly it's gone too far.'

A textbook overshoot of shock appeals: guilt aimed at the sick also lands on the bereaved, who are the audience that knows the stakes best.

Shows the escalation ladder of a botched campaign — defend, edit, withdraw, apologise — with each step bigger than the last.

The underlying cause was sound (51 deaths a day, checks that could prevent 9,100 deaths), which makes the execution failure more instructive, not less.

Shock only works on people not yet living the consequence; aim a guilt message at the bereaved and the story becomes your apology, not your cause.

The campaign never returned; the withdrawal and the medical adviser's 'gone too far' admission became the story, covered nationally by the ABC with video of the original ad.