Babies
MTN Group
TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris
The Challenge
MTN, summarizes their brand purpose in a simple equation: Opportunity + Energy = Progress.
But Africa’s situations are overcoming her. So the brand wanted something that was both both mindful of the realities of the market while simultaneously playful and optimistic – something that would inspire energy without being insensitive to the everyday struggles people deal with.
The Solution
It’s instinct: babies see phones and devices and they have imaginary convos.
Using film TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris imagined the accidental brilliance babies could bring to the world’s most challenging situations if their conversations weren’t just make believe.
Film allowed us to pretend, for a minute, that their play had real implications. This meant people could speak plainly about the Africa’s problems, while injecting optimism, and a hefty helping of cuteness. All while suggesting that if we start to approach problems and challenges with less pessimism and more playfulness, we’ll find our way to a very surprising future. All thanks to film.
The Results
In a very real, very sobering world, the campaign spoke a message of possibility and optimism. Not in an overly serious or worthy way, but in a manner worthy of stopping scrollers, mid-meme mining, and rewarding them with a smile – or, as some called the commercial, to be a ‘time-line cleanser’.
