The Slimmest Margin / Process Creative

Project Summary

What started as a simple routine check-up turned into a life-altering discovery. The Slimmest Margin tells the true story of Rick - a husband, father, and lifelong golfer - who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and entrusted his care to Hoag Hospital’s Digestive Health Institute. What followed was a journey of extraordinary precision, compassion, and expertise led by Dr. Kenneth Chang and his team.

This wasn’t just a patient story. It was a deeply human reminder of how healing happens - not all at once, but in layered moments, shared glances, quiet prayers, and the steady hands of those who care. We partnered with Hoag to bring Rick’s journey to life through a short film and a full-scale integrated campaign.

Client

Hoag

Our Role

Art Direction
Visual Design
Motion Design
Creative Direction
Copy Writing
Video Production
Photography
Post Production

Featured Spot

The Approach

We didn’t want this to feel like a traditional healthcare ad. Instead, we set out to tell Rick’s story the way memory works - through atmosphere, emotion, and fragments of time.

We filmed across two days, capturing moments in Rick and Gloriane’s home, the hospital, and on the fairway. The visual language was restrained but intimate. A blend of docustyle realism and poetic visual storytelling. We opened with the outcome - Rick standing at the tee box, calm and steady - and let the journey unfold in reverse, showing the path that led him there.

Rick and his wife Glorianne’s voice, captured in interviews, guides the story. Not as a narrator, but as a thread of reflection. It’s personal. It’s simple. And it’s human. Just like the care he received.

:30 Spot

The Challenge

The challenge was clear: how do you honor the depth of a patient’s experience without falling into healthcare cliché?

Hoag didn’t want a traditional testimonial, they wanted something real. Something that would stop people mid-scroll or walking past a billboard and make them feel. We had to tell a story of cancer, healing, and gratitude in a way that avoided the expected… and revealed the extraordinary.

What made this project unique is what makes Process different. We lead with empathy, not just creative. We dig deep into personal interviews, find the thread, and then build a cinematic world around it. Rick’s story had all the raw material - our job was to tell it with honesty, reverence, and restraint.

Campaign

The Campaign

Once the film was complete, we expanded the story into a 360 campaign that would stretch across Orange County.

We developed short-form social edits, out-of-home placements, and print ads - all rooted in the concept of life reclaimed. Billboards featured Rick’s silhouette mid-swing, paired with handwritten lines like “Because of Dr. Chang, I’m Cancer Free.”

Social content teased the film with cutdowns and behind-the-scenes moments. In waiting rooms and clinics, print materials offered a URL to the full story - turning a quiet moment into a deeper emotional connection.

The Slimmest Margin became more than a patient film. It became a statement of who Hoag is - and how they care. Not just with precision, but with humanity.