The Ad Council’s Love Has No Labels movement has added a new extension to its campaign platform with the release of Fans of Love.
To coincide with Valentine’s Day, the Ad Council, R/GA, and their brand partners have launched Fans of Love, an extension of the iconic Love Has No Labels campaign. Filmed live at the NFL Pro Bowl in Orlando in January, the fresh series adds a pleasant twist to the traditional kiss cam.
Replacing it with an unbiased camera while featuring all forms of love, the effort shines the spotlight on friendships, families, and romantic relationships—across race, religion, gender, sexuality, ability, and age. The main aim of the latest roll-out is to re-frame an iconic part of love’s culture.
“Fans of Love highlights that love has the power to bring people together. We hope this new creative will encourage all of us to reflect on our own biases and on the role we can play in creating a more accepting and inclusive world,” said Lisa Sherman, President and CEO of the Ad Council.
Love Has No Labels debuted in 2015 with a video of skeletons dancing and embracing before coming out from behind an x-ray screen to reveal themselves as diverse couples, friends, and families; it was followed by We Are America which celebrated diversity and starred John Cena.
The initial ‘skeletons’ spot garnered over 164 million views, making it the second most viewed social activism video of all time. Fans of Love continues to feature real people and relationships, honour diversity, and promote inclusion. The commercials were created pro bono by R/GA.
The long-form video and television spot use the jumbotron, an iconic staple at sporting events, to highlight romantic love as well as positive depictions of unity and acceptance. The video opens with a fan camera at the NFL Pro Bowl scanning the crowd for couples to feature on the jumbotron.
As the camera continues to scan the audience, it readjusts the framing to capture real families, couples, and friends across different races, religions, genders, sexualities, abilities, and ages. Authentic reactions of surprise and support from real NFL fans at the event are highlighted in the video.
The campaign directs audiences to its dedicated website, which features a quiz to help people examine their own biases and resources on how to take actionable steps to rethink biases. An interactive video will present relevant facts and links to educational content while viewers watch it.
The integrated push includes television spots and digital banners running entirely on time and space donated by the media. The online and broadcast spots feature the song, Show Me Love (Skrillex Remix), featuring Chance the Rapper, Moses Sumney, and Robin Hannibal by Hundred Waters.
The initiative taps into the expertise of six non-profits—the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Center, Human Rights Campaign, American Association of People with Disabilities, Perception Institute, and AARP. Meanwhile, themed merchandise is available via a campaign shop.
Sponsors include the NFL, Pepsi, P&G, State Farm, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Google, and Johnson & Johnson. On top of funding, the brands are offering on- and offline activations spanning social messaging, employee engagement, social influencer programmers, events, and more.
Upworthy, a 2015 campaign launch partner, is continuing its support by running Fans of Love on its social channels. Among other things, Tumblr is backing Fans of Love by sharing the video with its Post It Forward community to amplify the campaign’s call to action to the user base at large.
Facebook, Kargo, ESPN, VOX, Bauer, and Little Things are extending the message via donated media support on their respective platforms. Hearst has signed on through Seventeen and Cosmo’s social channels, while SheKnows and Fatherly have pledged digital mileage through social media.
Also, global brand experience agency, Jack Morton Worldwide, will help extend the Love Has No Labels message by way of social activations across the campaign’s social communities.
