Aldermore

Aldermore bank, which provides specialist funding solutions to small and medium sized enterprises,  launched its ‘Small but Mighty’ business campaign, featuring videos of inspiring case studies of small businesses and brokers from across the UK, showcasing how they have responded to and innovated through lockdown. The campaign to celebrates the resilience of small businesses, which are the backbone of the UK economy and have been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The four-minute video, is a testimony to the determination, strength of character and creativity of the owners of small and medium sized businesses, all of whom share their experiences of crisis and recovery. The stories are intimate and emotional, and while the tone is solemn as business owners speak about loss and hardship, it is also optimistic as it shows a great deal of innovation and creativity. One woman owner of a plant business, for example, recounts how she and her team incorporated the needs of the people in new products, in this case creating plant holders that could be also uses as hand sanitisers. A gin distillery switched business overnight and began making hand sanitiser, producing 2 million bottles in a week.

“Our intention is to celebrate SMEs and all that they have done to succeed, while also providing inspiring stories and a glimmer of hope for the 5.8 million small businesses that power the UK economy. As we enter recession, it’s important that we continue to uplift and support the SME community as they will be vital to the country’s recovery,” says head of marketing for business finance at Aldermore Rebecca Collings.

Bumble

Over Black History Month dating app Bumble celebrates what black love means in Britain today with #MyLoveIsBlackLove, with videos featuring 31 stories over 31 days, in hopes of igniting a conversation by celebrating real love stories from black British communities, which are often underrepresented. video features British actors, artists, athletes, entrepreneurs and activists, including Nicola Adams, Jourdan Dunn, George the Poet and Clara Amfo, all aiming to better represent the breadth of real and genuinely British, black love stories. The black voices featured in the videos share unscripted reflections on what love means to them, and the different forms it can take.  The #MyLoveIsBlackLove stories encompass ‘a world where we can see ourselves be happy,’ in a culture where almost three in four black people across the UK don’t see themselves represented in mainstream romantic narratives. The video campaigns seek to open up the conversation about love within the black community in the UK, while also amplifying the voices within the black British identity.

“Black love means finding security in us, our history, our fears, our hopes, saying that is where I want to be, who I want to be, I want to be that person with you,” says George the Poet.

Samsung

Samsung released a new video ‘Onions’ as part of its new campaign ‘Inspired by a True Photo,’ which champions real-life consumer photos, making them the start of a creative journey. Based on real-life photo of a sack of onions taken on a Samsun smartphone, the video expresses the human emotion that can be unleashed from a beautifully shot yet simple photograph. It also shows how a single user-generated image can inspire diverse cultural art forms, such as cinematography and music. Voiceless, the video allows the images to speak for themselves, creating a build-up between the two characters that long for one another, and finally meet around a bag of onions in the last scene.

“Rarely are we given the creative freedom to seek inspiration from things that may usually pass us by. A photo of a bag of onions is just that, a bag of onions. Until you think about the way this ubiquitous veg is a cultural connector, can elicit emotion, and has the potential to bring people together,” says Sam Hibbard of Somesuch London, director of the video.

“This new platform is a completely original way to talk about smartphone photography and will open us up to a totally new audience. Camera technology has evolved rapidly over the past few years, but the way people use those photos has evolved even faster, morphing into its own form of instant communication,” adds Sharon Hegarty, marketing director at Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland.

The United Nations World Food Programme 

The United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP), the world’s leading humanitarian organisation fighting world hunger, worked with Sir John Hegarty and the Garage Soho to launch a global cinema campaign ‘Feed Our Future,’ which aims to raise awareness on the effects of child hunger across the world. The one-minute, black and white video is chilling and heart-breaking, appealing to the audiences’ pathos. It opens on a scene of destruction taken from recent headlines where conflict and hunger are deeply intertwined. As they play in rubble, a chorus of children begin to sing, in feeble and small voices, ‘How Can I Tell You’ by Cat Stevens, before they disappear one by one. Their disappearance, and sudden silence, represents the harsh realities faced by the 3 million children across the world who die because of hunger or malnutrition each year.

Walgreens Boots Alliance

As part of World Pharmacist Day one of the global leaders in retail and wholesale pharmacy Walgreens Boots Alliance launched a video celebrating pharmacists and the work they have done for communities across the UK, in stepping in to help the National Health Service during the Covid-19 pandemic. Interviews with Boots UK Richard Bradley and other employees are combined with shots of the drive-in Covid-19 testing site set up in Boots’s headquarters in Nottingham. The video emphasises that the tests are free of charge for NHS workers, and are carried out by volunteers from the Boots business, predominantly members of the Boots opticians team. “I volunteered today to support our NHS at this crucial time, so we can really help those that are the forefront on the NHS,” says Joati Dhallu, boots healthcare academy trainer.