Lilly's Olympics Ad Promises To 'Fight Like Hell' For Athletes

Eli Lilly has launched a new campaign to coincide with the Olympic Games, delivering a powerful message: “You only get one body, let's fight like hell for it.” In partnership with Team USA, the pharmaceutical giant highlights that while anybody can fall ill, no one should simply accept it. The 60-second ad showcases the diverse forms of Olympian bodies, featuring a basketball player, a gymnast's aerial view, a weightlifter, and a Paralympian runner. The narration emphasizes the uniqueness of each athlete, stating that your body might “stand seven feet tall,” be ideal for gymnastics, “take up a lot of space,” or “move differently.”

Athletes and everyone else share a common destiny: their bodies might eventually get sick. “No matter how strong you are, your health may still slip out of your control,” the voice-over states. However, the ad makes a clear distinction between inevitability and acceptance regarding this reality. “You don't have to accept that,” the voice-over continues. “Consider this: around a billion things had to align perfectly for you to be born. And since you only get one body, let's fight like hell for it.” These powerful words accompany scenes of a newborn baby entering the world, meeting a healthcare professional, and then their mother for the first time.

Lilly has teamed up with over 25 Olympians to promote their film on social media during the games. Suni Lee, the Team USA gymnast featured in the ad, has already shared it on Instagram. Through its agreements with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams and NBCUniversal, the U.S. media partner for the games, Lilly has managed to gain visibility despite Sanofi sponsoring the games in Paris. Both pharmaceutical companies are running extensive campaigns during the Olympics. Lilly has made U.S. gymnast Simone Biles the spokesperson for its GLP-1 drug Mounjaro, while Sanofi is pushing a variety of digital and real-world materials as part of its largest corporate initiative to date.