Logitech and Lizzo look to make us all feel special

This is not the first time that one of Lizzo’s songs has appeared in an ad. The eponymous track from her breakout album Cuz I Love You – nominated at the 2019 Grammy Awards for album of the year – was featured in a 2021 ad for Pepsi Wild Cherry. Her 2019 hit Good as Hell, from the same album, was the soundtrack to a 2020 Grubhub ad.

The video opens with Lizzo, wearing a brilliant yellow dress, sitting behind her computer. She looks up into her Logitech webcam and becomes entranced by what she sees behind the lens: a kaleidoscopic vision of seemingly ordinary people leveraging Logitech gadgets to perform a multitude of extraordinary tasks.

We see the digital artist Defaced, for example, walking down a busy city street while wielding a stylus to create eye-catching designs on a tablet. Text appears on the screen: “this is a work of art.” The shot cuts to the same artist, now seated behind his own computer, finalizing the sale of one of his original NFTs.

Fast forward and we see a woman seated in front of a monitor, with a cat standing above the keyboard (“this is an office”). Cut to footage of internet sensation Bretman Rock livestreaming to fans in front of a webcam (“this is a full-time job”).

And all the while, floating in the background, is Lizzo’s voice, which in pop culture has become something of a synonym for confidence and fearless individualism. One of the refrains from the chorus of her new song tells us: “In case nobody told you today, you’re special.”

The core message of the video is clear: old walls are crumbling, traditionally rigid barriers are blurring, and now – thanks in large part (but not exclusively) to technology – people are beginning to creatively engineer new normals of work, play, romance, self-expression, fashion, income and entertainment. The ad is also, of course, intended to showcase a wide variety of Logitech products, which Najoh Tita-Reid, the company’s chief marketing officer, describes as being “as diverse as humans are.” Logitech's agency of record Virtue handled.

The efflorescence of opportunity to shape one’s personal and professional life with the help of technology, says Tita-Reid, “defies logic from how it was when we grew up where you had to be one place to work, one place to create, you had to look a certain way, be a certain person. It wasn’t for all, and today it is. And we want to celebrate that that defies logic – like, how exciting is that?”

Beginning with Lizzo’s yellow dress, the video is awash with eye-catching primary colors, a theme that has come to be commonly associated with the fashion of gen Z. It’s also noteworthy that everyone in the video appears to be a 20- or 30-something. On the whole, the video is clearly geared toward younger consumers, and intended to position Logitech as a hip tech brand with an eye toward the future.

Creating marketing campaigns that both include young cast members and target young consumers, says Tita-Reid, requires some innovative modes of thinking. “Many marketers were taught that they write the message ... that was the old logic. The new logic and the new way is that you have respect for the people that you’re working with. And it’s a mutual respect, you respect them, and you have to earn their respect, you can’t buy it. And so that model in itself is transformative.”

Logitech, says Tita-Reid, is well-positioned to reach and resonate with those who – like the young creators in its new ad – have not always had the tools or the support that they’ve needed to be their authentic selves: “We understand what it’s like to be an underdog and have to work your way to matter and be relevant, and we want to help everybody do the same.”

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