From tackling sustainability issues to place branding, here is the latest in video communications. For more from #CommunicateLens, follow @Communicatemag on Twitter.

Beagle Street

Life inusurance company, Beagle Street, worked with Creature London to release its video campaign. Creature worked with Agile Film to create a fun, animation brand film featuring how rich people’s lives are, from the feeling of owning your first home to the new responsibilities that come with being a parent. The film includes momentous yet relatable moments in people’s lives, frozen in time and narrated by a rhyming voiceover, which demonstrates how life insurance can help provide people with the peace of mind to focus on what really matters. The film features humours and quirky characters and models, all of which were developed by model maker Andy Gent. Noah Harris, director of Agile Film, described ‘Insurance for Life,’ as a “a joyously fun celebration of Britishness through the prism of the model village, a loving recreation of the world we live in, in miniature.”

“This campaign is the start of the next phase of our mission to make life insurance more accessible, by reminding consumers that we all live a life worth insuring,” says Sarah Martin, associate director of marketing and distribution at Beagle Street. The new positioning, ‘Insurance for Life’, will be used as the creative platform for Beagle Street as it enters a new period in the business’s history.

Inspired by Iceland

The official Icelandic tourism agency, Inspired by Iceland, launched ‘looks like you need to joyscroll,’ an interactive and playful campaign invited viewers to visit Iceland, a land of hidden beauties. The video features a friendly Icelandic woman who speaks directly to the camera and the audience on the backdrop of an Iceland lake scenery, telling the viewers to stop ‘doomscrolling’ through news and start ‘joyscrolling’ through happy things. By drawing a parallel between the 22.7 metres of bad news people doom scroll every day, and the landscapes in Iceland that are 22.7 metres long, like waterfalls and streams, the video highlights Iceland’s natural beauties awaiting to be discovered. The video redirects viewers to a website made exclusively to joy scroll Iceland’s best tourism spots; by scrolling an actual distance of 22.7 metres, one can watch and hear the sounds of waves crashing on the shore, look at a sunset with a background music of ‘songs that make us smile,’ look at whales as they breath out and spray water, and cook a typical Icelandic meal of fish. Not only does the campaign raise awareness of Iceland’s touristic hotspots but also allows for people to fully experience the island virtually, in a time when travel is very limited. Every last detail is included in the interactive experience e of joy scrolling.

OSU

Premium Japanese apple cider vinegar brand in the UK crafted by Mizkan, OSU, worked with Wonderhood Studios to launch a playful campaign to encompass some of the country’s oldest resident’s zest for life. Introduced in January as the excitement begins to build for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the campaign was designed to help broaden the brand’s appeal and focus on the benefits of vinegar-drinking, a centuries-old daily habit rooted in Japanese tradition. Featuring vivid outfits, jazz music, Japanese talent, and three nonagenarians the campaign is honours and bright, capturing the energy of those living life to the full, even after a certain age. This specific video features Michiko Hoshi, as the dance in the streets with a colourful outfit. The campaign will also help raise awareness for the premium range of OSU products, developed to overcome perception barriers to taste. The locations in the video are unmistakably Japanese, from a traditional public garden to a typical suburban street, and the clothes a combination of traditional and modern Japan, further enhancing the authenticity of it all. The music is an original composition brought together by Foster & Foster Music and was inspired by the Japanese jazz music popularised by the talent’s generation. 

Sainsbury’s Digital, Tech and Data

Sainsbury’s Digital, Tech and Data (DTD), the retailer’s in-house tech and data venture that helps customers seek more convenient and intuitive easy to shop using new technology, released a video to share employees’ insights into what it’s like to work in the company, in a bad to attract newcomers. The video features short clips of different employees shot on their phone as they work remotely from their homes and share a bit of their lives, roles, and aspirations. For some, working at Sainsbury’s DTD is collaborative and inclusive, for others it’s about the support in fulfilling career goals, while for others it’s the flexibility the job allows for.

The video is a good example of employer brand management, but it is not too staid or corporate in its tone, as the employees interviewed have a chance to share what superpower they’d want if they could have on, which renders the video familiar and more intimate. Every interview is overlaid with colourful quirky emojis, from the hashtag key to the cloud symbol, making the video fun and appealing to the audience, reflecting the kind of working environment in Sainsbury’s DTD.