This week Madhuwanti takes a look at Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ powerful campaign featuring medical professionals in Canada and the US who selflessly battle against the coronavirus pandemic and Apple’s ‘Creativity Goes On’ video which captures ways creativity is flourishing in quarantine. Closer home, Tata Pravesh, through a slick crowdsourced ad film, delivers a befitting message.
1. Dove
There’s something about Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ ads. They always manage to catch our attention with provocative yet authentic ads since its inception in 2004. Its latest campaign ‘Courage is Beautiful’ featuring frontline healthcare workers, is hauntingly beautiful and powerful at the same time. The 30-second spot shows their faces bruised and red by the protective gear they’ve been continuously wearing to fight this COVID-19 pandemic.
What I loved the most was that unlike its previous (‘Real Beauty’) campaigns, Dove didn’t restrict itself to female workers and showcased men as well. With that, it makes a powerful statement that courage is, indeed, beautiful (since it knows no gender). The campaign salutes and pays a beautiful tribute to these medical professionals whose bruises tell selfless stories as they risk their lives to spend untold hours in ERs and hospital wards to save and comfort lives.
The initial ad, conceptualised by Ogilvy Canada, broke early last week in Canada, with a US version featuring more photos of American healthcare workers rolled out a few days later. The idea came from the agency spotting these photos, taken by Italian photographer Alberto Giuliani.
The campaign came out in a matter of five days, making it the fastest in the life of Alessandro Manfredi, executive vice president of the global Dove brand.
As a part of the new campaign, Dove has partnered with Vaseline and donated $2 million to Direct Relief to help provide personal protective equipment, ventilators, and medicine to healthcare workers. Additionally, Dove’s parent company Unilever contributed $108 million to help with COVID-19 relief through product and food donations.
It’s incredible how brands are doing their bit for these medical workers who are putting their lives on the line. Last month we saw British magazine Grazia replacing its celeb cover with nurses and doctors in its ‘From the Frontline’ edition. Recently Vivo came out with a similar-themed ad. And, now with a beauty brand Dove paying them a homage I am hoping to see more brands launching equally thoughtful campaigns.
Campaign: ‘Real Beauty: Courage’
Agency: Ogilvy Canada
2.Tata Pravesh
Tata Pravesh, a brand of steel doors from Tata Steel, conceptualised a perfect film for the current times with Wunderman Thompson(WT), titled #DoorsOfIndia. This one-minute crowdsourced film, themed on doors, is a fast-paced montage choreographed to a home-made soundscape. In the beginning, we see open doors of houses from across the country, eventually shutting, subtly underlining the stay-at-home mandate.
The team at WT used Instagram and Twitter posts by Indians with the Tata Pravesh hashtag #DoorsOfIndia. Once collected, the shots were combined with footage of closed doors sourced from the (agency’s) team across six Indian cities.
And, this leads to this neat film, aptly named ‘Shut Out Corona with #Doorsofindia.’ It’s a visual treat featuring another sight of India, the pretty doors of various shapes, sizes, age and lineage. Thanks to these doors, one could make out nation’s diversity. It also reflects smart use of resources – in this case, social media — without breaking the bank or stepping out.
The music is created by using live sounds of doors being shut and sounds of latches, hinges, stoppers and locks, along with ambient street noises and dialogues. In short, it’s a perfect ad from a brand of doors and windows which makes a simple point of ‘shutting out coronavirus by staying at home’ in an unusually delightful fashion.
Campaign: #DoorsOfIndia
Agency: Wunderman Thompson
3.Apple
On April 10, Apple shared a new ad titled ‘Creativity Goes On’ showcasing how people, both famous and unknown, are unleashing their creativity behind doors. In the opening scene of this nearly two-minute-long ad (1.37), we see a bored child looking forlornly out of the window. It’s followed by Loft Cinema’s assuring message ‘We will get this together’ on the screen, a mother capturing her baby behind her lens and a behind-the-scene look of John Krasinski’s ‘Some Good News’ YouTube show, among others.
There is also a scene of Oprah Winfrey delivering encouraging words about the COVID-19 pandemic to her viewers on her #OprahTalks on Apple TV+. The film is in line with Apple’s ongoing ‘Behind the Mac’ campaign.
This uplifting video, set to the piano track of ‘Asleep at the Parade’ by The Young Ebenezers, shows how students, artists, dancers, music teachers, and celebrities continue on their creative journeys and share moments with their loved ones (across a distance) with help from Apple products like the iPad and MacBook Pro.
Through this uplifting and poignant film, Apple proves that nothing can dampen people’s spirits and creativity. And the brand is happy to do its bit for them.
In the video’s description, Apple mentions how it believes in the power of creativity and that it’s inspired by the people across the globe ‘finding new ways to share their creativity, ingenuity, humanity and hope.’
Apple goes on to share how it can help further with its activity series on education, photography and children’s creativity, among others. The ad is a perfect testament to it.
