5 campaigns that form an emotional connection

Work that forms an emotional connection with the audience is always the most powerful. The best advertising manages to achieve this link in a way that isn’t artificial. It’s touching without being maudlin; it’s humorous without being trite.

Engaging with these ads, I laughed and I cried. But most of all, I paid attention.

Paper Organs
Taiwan Organ Sharing Registry & Patient Autonomy Promotion Center and Leo Burnett Taiwan

As the late, great Howard Gossage once said, “People don’t read advertising. They read what interests them, and sometimes that’s advertising.” This stunning work for the Taiwan Organ Sharing Registry is both visually arresting and taps into a deep insight. We want to remain connected to our loved ones, somehow and some way, after they die. I appreciate that such great care was taken here, not just in the craft itself but with the agency taking the time to truly understand the problem and connect with the issue. As a result, the work itself connects to the audience.

The Working with Cancer Pledge
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Publicis Groupe

Depicting cancer as a career killer is a shocking new way to approach a terrible scourge. The beauty of this campaign is that it uses the form of a pledge to persuade companies to change how they deal with employees who have the disease. Cancer always starts out as an invisible enemy and there’s been incredible advertising work done bringing new treatments to light. Here the focus is on what patients must deal with as they try to keep their disease hidden. Employment arms them with the monetary means to deal with their illness, not to mention the emotional strength that comes from having a work-based purpose.

Assume That I Can
CoorDown and Small

I love the tonal choice here. No pathos. No treacle. Just righteous anger and humor delivered by a terrific young actor. The writing and direction are spot-on, and viewers are left giving a “hell yeah!” in agreement. Launched for World Down Syndrome Day, Assume That I Can makes the viewer question their preconceived notions — and, in so doing, puts the spotlight not just on people with Down syndrome but also on the people they encounter in their daily lives. The best part of this is that it isn’t a solution to a manufactured advertising problem. It’s the right response to a real problem.

The Misheard Version
Specsavers and Golin London

If I asked you to sing Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light,” especially the cover version popularized by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, you’d get the lyrics hilariously wrong. That’s likely why Specsavers enlisted British crooner Rick Astley to help illustrate that the mangling of song lyrics can be an early sign of hearing loss: You don’t hear it right, so you don’t sing it right. To make their point, the creators have Astley sing his hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” with new and amusingly tragic lyrics. It’s good fun and made me think, “Maybe it’s not my fault that I didn’t hear my wife ask me to clean out the garage.” Now, go look up those Springsteen/Mann lyrics.

I Will Always Be Me
Dell Technologies and Intel in partnership with the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Rolls-Royce and VML

Motor Neuron Disease can rob people of their ability to speak; this elegant solution gives them their voices back. The creators devised a book that, when read by an individual with MND, stores and processes their voice. So when they do finally lose it, they can still communicate with their loved ones via a speech-assisted device — in their own voices, sounding like themselves. The insight that a person’s voice is such a key part of identity is incredibly powerful. This is an example of how clients and agencies are using technology to push the creative envelope in a way that’s just plain smart.