Born in Quarantine

I had an email from a famous novelist who reads this screed.
 
Why does an author educated in philosophy at the hallowed Wellesley College read these rants?
 
Who knows. Maybe it's my snarky existentialist bent. But for some reason she's a fan.
 
And it's not as if she's suddenly lost her judgment after being locked inside the house for several weeks. 
 
(I've told this to several friends: a writer during a lockdown barely notices. We were signing up for social distance when they issued our writer license. If we're judgment impaired, it happened long before COVID measures.)
 
Anyway, this famous novelist mentioned a particular national TV commercial.
 
 
Seems it stopped her in her tracks.
 
She asked what I thought of it.
 
Ironically, The Fabulous Honey Parker and I had just been discussing this very same commercial.
 
It opens with a plaintive piano under black & white photos of a newborn.
 
It quickly segues to a collage of vintage with current images intercut. They're all of mothers and newborns, doctors and nurses, and photos of the moment, then and now.
 
An elderly woman narrates.
 
 
"I was born during a quarantine. I don't remember it, of course.
 
"But for my mother, it was a very difficult time. She told me, 'It was just you and me for many months.'
 
"But she wasn't alone. Everybody tried to do what they could to help. But she was also a very strong person.
 
"And then it was over. We came out into a new world, my mother and me.
 
"We can get through this. We all have the strength to do it. I'm a hundred years old. And you just take care of that little miracle."
 
 
We also get to see the woman speaking. She looks fantastic.
 
A title says, "Anita Simpson, born in 1920 during the influenza pandemic."
 
Another title says, "For all new moms in quarantine, you're not alone."
 
The closing title is, "FB.com/parentsupport";
 
The name "Facebook" sits very quietly at the bottom of the frame.
 
If you haven't seen it, you can watch it right here... 
 
And the question is...
 
 
Why is Facebook touching this nerve?
 
Or maybe a better question is, HOW is FB touching this nerve and what can the rest of us take away from it?
 
Facebook is a much used and widely reviled product.
 
It's also a piece of the zeitgeist, which (if they're smart) gives Facebook a certain responsibility.
 
And in the wake of the third rails they enjoy touching, like privacy breaches, phone number exposures, Cambridge Analytica, shadow profiles, and well...
 
 
Let's just say Facebook has some image problems.
 
That's probably one reason they hired New York-based Droga5 last year as their ad agency.
 
And if you visit Droga5's website, you can see an ad agency moving quickly. There's a page called, "Helping brands navigate COVID-19 in real time." The copy reads, in part:
 
"As the coronavirus pandemic reached around the world, it has never been more important to stay connected, especially when we must stay physically apart. It has been inspiring to see how people are using Facebook's family of technologies to come together, and as a result, we fully pivoted our approach and reoriented our strategy, go-to-market and communications plans for the Facebook company's first brand marketing effort."
 
OK, well, it sounds like it was written by an ad agency. "Fully pivoted." "Reoriented our strategy." "Go-to-market plan."
 
But next, it says of the work they're doing, "In a matter of days, we pulled together a new film to demonstrate solidarity during these uncertain times--"
 
 
AUUUUGGGGH! "Uncertain times!" They said it!
 
OMG, D5 for FB! What're you doing?
 
OK, we all have lapses.
 
But, the more important word that they use here is "demonstrate."
 
This is good. And it's important.
 
They didn't say, "A new film to tell about solidarity." They said, "A new film to demonstrate solidarity."
 
That's key.
 
How many times can we be told about uncertain times and being in this together and blah blah blah blah.
 
 
Telling is feh.
 
Demonstrating? That's a win.
 
Demonstrate means to "give a practical exhibition" of something, "to clearly show the existence or truth" of something.
 
It's from the mid-16th century Latin word for "pointed out."
 
They're pointing at the truth without ever once speaking a single word of soggy oatmeal about uncertain times and how we're all in this together.
 
As a famous VO guy wrote to me recently about the endless telling, "Stop telling me how you're following CDC guidelines, stop telling me my safety is your number one priority, stop telling me I can order a car from the comfort of my own home, stop telling me things suck!"
 
Instead, the FB message does exactly what advertising should do.
 
 
It enters into a conversation the viewer is already having.
 
And it does it by pointing to a time and a people many of us haven't considered.
 
Then it offers a resource to those people and others like them who might need support.
 
Facebook sucks.
 
Long live Facebook.
 
They aren't going to make the haters love them overnight. Changing their image is a glacial process.
 
But they are perhaps moving forward.
 
And for anyone who advertises, Droga5's work for Facebook is a good model to examine.
 
What are doing well, and how can we do something like it?

Cheers,
Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in
Park City