The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By John Glenday, Reporter

March 4, 2021 | 3 min read

You may not be anywhere near the office water cooler right now, but we still want to spotlight the most talked about creative that should be on your radar. Today, we explore a campaign fronted by some famous adland faces which aims to life spirits amid lockdown.

A group of adland leading lights have pulled together under the Sooner Collective banner to lift the industry’s spirits by encouraging people to share their wishes, wants and needs for life post-lockdown, as the UK tentatively prepares a return to some semblance of normality (touch wood).

Led by BBH co-founder Sir Nigel Bogle and Robert Campbell, founder of creative production firm Outsider, the impassioned ’#LetsGetThereSooner’ social media campaign sees people share what they miss the most from a ’good old fashioned handshake’ to being back in the middle of a crowd and sharing hugs with loved ones.

The uplifting video messages of hope then cuts to a plea for viewers to ’stick to the rules’ so we can all ’get our old life back’.

Contrasting with the government’s more sombre messaging, the upbeat tone of the campaign encourages participation through Facebook and Instagram and spread the word to family, friends and colleagues.

Viewers are invited to share their positive lockdown messages in the form of videos and photos to shift the public mood towards optimism and hope for the future.

Dispelling a mood of despondency evident in the majority of government pandemic pronouncements, the grassroots film serves as a much-needed pick-me-up for people who now dare to hope for light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Campbell said: “The pandemic crisis is not over and it is imperative that we all stick to the rules. We sense a growing desire amongst friends, family and colleagues to inject some positivity and warmth into the messaging around the pandemic after a long hard winter.“

Social media activity will be supported by a nationwide poster campaign to take the message beyond our screens.

The Sooner Collective activity comes in the wake of revelations that the UK government has spent over £180m on public information campaigns since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak last year, with MG OMD and MullenLowe winning the lion’s share of this work.

These have generally adopted a hard-hitting approach to scare the public into compliance, with the use of real hospital footage and severely ill patients to press the importance of the ’Stay at Home’ message.

Check out The Drum’s special Health hub, which examines how the key players – from health agencies to pharma firms to brands – are doing their part to return the world to normality.

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