Creative agency Emotive and Good Oil Films are partnering with YouTube and the United Nations to raise awareness around the importance of quality education, which forms part of the UN’s Global Goals for sustainable development.
The sequential stories, made exclusively for YouTube via its video ad sequencing tool, are designed to spark a conversation around a largely unknown problem in Australia – illiteracy.
In tackling the brief, Emotive discovered that over half a million Australians between the ages of 15 and 85 are illiterate.
This reminded the team that despite how far Australia has come as a nation, education is something that should never be taken for granted.
That led to the core idea - a Trojan Trailer.
“We wanted to draw attention to the goal by way of a simple demonstration, and by making people empathise with the problem," Emotive group creative director Ben Clare says.
"The idea was to draw viewers in with a movie trailer - one of YouTube’s most searched categories. Only ours contained a hidden message about illiteracy. To illiterate audiences, it was seen as a dramatic film trailer. To anyone who can read, we created a stark reminder of the difference quality education can make in people’s lives.”
The sequential stories use a combination of short teaser films to build intrigue for a 60-second trailer.
For those who skip the trailer, Emotive created a series of subsequent films in which the protagonist's situation gets progressively worse - an analogy for how illiteracy affects one’s life.
“I wanted people to really think they were watching a trailer, so it had to have scale," Good Oil Films director Michelle Savill says.
"Getting a plane out to the dunes and shooting under a summer sun was challenging in the best way and worth it for the spectacular visuals. I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.”
Google Australia head of creative development Fiona Walford says the project demonstrated what could be done with YouTube.
“We were looking for best-in-class global agencies - leaned into YouTube, with proven credentials, and great client examples on the platform - to showcase the possibilities of creating sequential stories on YouTube,” Walford says.
The campaign is now live exclusively on YouTube.
Credits
Creative Agency: Emotive
Group Creative Director - Ben Clare
Managing Partner and Head of Strategy - Michael Hogg
Designer - Alex King
Business Director - Sarah Clifton
Head of Distribution - Jamie Crick
CEO - Simon Joyce
Production Company: Good Oil
Director - Michelle Savill
Producer – Amanda Yu
Executive Producer - Andrew McLean
Executive Producer - Sam Long
D.O.P – Jason White
Editor - Dan Kircher
Production Designer – Cherith Crozier
Post Production:
Blockhead
Music:
Cam Ballantyne
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