#GiveLoveAChance campaign

How we turned performance art into online video commercials

Moscow, Russia

Could it be more international?

What happens when an agency from Dubai led by a British creative director wins the pitch for Unilever Middle East, then hires Lebanese production company that hires a German director that refers to your past work (done in Moscow, China and the US) in the treatment? You cancel your New Year's plans and get to work instead, because they eventually approached you with a project that was far more exciting than what you had in mind for the New Year.

Close Up up-close

Close Up is an international oral care brand by Unilever that is all about, well, closeness. Yet their recent study showed that it's not as simple as it sounds — only less than 3 in 5 youths believe they can get close to someone they're attracted to. To help them overcome insecurity, Close Up started the #GiveLoveAChance campaign and invited couples to share their personal experience in overcoming barriers to closeness and share a message of encouragement to others who don't feel free to love.

Projections, camera, action!

As a key visual element of the campaign, Close Up wanted their vision of "The Shortest Love Stories Ever Told" to be interpreted into the language of multimedia. Specifically, they wanted a series of mini video performances, each telling a short love story facing certain challenges and questioning the norms.

All worked out well though — your YouTube videos may have already been interrupted by #GiveLoveAChance campaign. If not, you can always watch one of them here.

So, we brought together a few dozen of creatives, performers, choreographers, set designers, filming crew, and almost the whole Avocado Toast headquarters under one roof. What we did next was pretty similar to what we would have done for a live event, including hours of set preparations, projection adjustments, costume fittings, make-up, and rehearsals. Except for the fact that there was no audience to watch the result live. Instead, we performed in front of the only spectator (also, the most demanding one around) — the camera lens.