Hasta La Motion!

Ad Council has launched “Love Knows No Labels”, an integrated campaign designed to challenge bias relating to sexual orientation, gender, race, age, disability and religion. Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Selma March (March 7-25, 1965), the campaign is centred on a PSA filmed at a live event in Santa Monica on Valentine’s Day 2015. A large x-ray screen is turned on to reveal two skeletons embracing and dancing. As the skeletons separate and walk out from behind the screen, the audience discovers who they really are. This reveal happens a number of times, each with a new set of skeletons highlighting different pairings of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ability and age to challenge the viewers’ expectation and encourage them to take a closer look at their own implicit bias.

Launched on lovehasnotlabels.com on February 12, the Diversity & Inclusion campaign began to grow awareness and an online community on Facebook through leveraging social media activations posted by campaign partners The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, P&G, Unilever, Allstate and State Farm on their various social media pages. The site includes a quiz testing implicit bias, tips for addressing bias, stories of people experiencing discrimination, and pointers for action.

The campaign taps into the expertise of eight leading non-profit organizations in each of the discriminated classes. The campaign website connects visitors to partnering non-profit organizations including Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Women’s Law Center, Human Rights Campaign, American Association of People with Disabilities, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Muslim Advocates and AARP, where they can sign pledges, report bullying incidents and participate in other activities.

Most Americans agree that people should be treated respectfully and fairly. Yet many people in the United States still report feeling discriminated against. For example, one in five LGBT people report feeling there is little or no acceptance of their community. Six in ten Latinos report that discrimination is a major problem and a majority of African Americans report that they are not satisfied with the way they are treated in society.

Ad Council suggests that Americans might be discriminating unintentionally, affected by implicit bias. “Implicit bias influences how we treat people and how we interact with each other. More broadly, it can perpetuate disparities by impacting someone’s ability to find a job, secure a loan, rent an apartment or get a fair trial. To end bias, we need to become aware of it. And then we need to do everything within our power to stop it in ourselves, others, and institutions.”

“Implicit bias refers to the way people unconsciously and sometimes unwillingly exhibit bias towards other individuals and groups,” said Rachel Godsil, Co-founder and Director of Research of the Perception Institute. “It doesn’t mean that people are hiding their racial prejudices, instead, people who actively reject prejudice may still unknowingly carry around some degree of bias or stereotypes about others. The good news is that once we are aware of our biases, we can begin to take action to reduce the effects they can have on our behavior and ultimately, to reduce the biases themselves.”

The new PSAs will run in donated time and space both online and on television stations across the country. New print and web banner PSAs using a similar skeleton concept highlight the main idea on the campaign website, “Before anything else, we’re all human” and encourage people to learn how to challenge their own biases.

In addition to funding the year-long campaign, partner companies will show their support around keytimes during the year. Each partner company, including The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, P&G, Unilever, Allstate and State Farm, were identified based on their demonstrated commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion within andbeyond their organizations.

Credits

The Love Has No Labels campaign was created at R/GA by global chief creative officer Nick Law and executive creative directors Eric Jannon and Chris Northam.

Filming was shot by director Danielle Levitt via Persuade Content with director of photography Mike Berlucchi, executive producers Jerry Solomon and Edward Grann, influence technologist and experientalist team Mindride (Yehuda Duenyas and Michelle Stern).

Music is “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis with Mary Lambert.