Even during the current hard time, people continue to create amazing, inspiring, and engaging social, advertising, and commercial campaigns. Below I’ve collected a few campaigns, posters, artworks, and videos that inspired me the most during the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you want to read more inspiring stories? Check the Atlas Corps “Believe In Superheroes” campaign with stories about Atlas Corps Alumni fighting against the spread of COVID-19 worldwide!
New Superheroes by Different Brands
Everyone hears the thought that during the COVID-19 pandemic, we transformed the whole concept of superheroes. Our new superheroes are doctors and nurses, factories’ workers, delivery agents, and staff of grocery stores, who help us survive during the COVID-19 lockdown.
I’ve seen the first social advertising telling about the new superheroes concept in March 2020. It was a poster series “Thank you, Doctors” by the advertising agency McCann Belgrade. On these posters, doctors with the superheroes’ marks (such as Spiderman, Ironman, and Superman) are on their faces. These marks are very similar to the ordinary marks of face masks used by health workers in hospitals. The agency placed around 100 posters with these new superheroes on empty street billboards throughout Central East Europe.
After the McCann Agency, Dove launched a tribute campaign named “Courage is Beautiful.” The brand published a video with photos of American doctors and nurses with the real face masks’ marks. They called these marks “battle scars.” In addition to its “Superheroes campaign,” Dove published a 20 seconds video reminding people to wash their hands. And it doesn’t matter what soap they will use for that!
But for sure, the final point in these superheroes series was made by Banksy. This famous and mysterious street art artist drew a painting “Game Changer,” where a guy plays with a nurse doll while previous superhero toys stayed discarded in a trash bin. Currently, this painting is on display at Southampton General Hospital in the UK.
Naked Protest Over PPE Shortages
But health workers appear not only in superheroes campaigns. Even in leading hospitals in G20 countries doctors face the lack of PPE (personal protective equipment). German doctors decided to show their needs in PPE and draw the attention of the government by launching a virtual protest. A group of German frontline health workers posted their naked photos at work—that’s how they look in front of COVID-19 while examining patients without appropriate equipment.
All pictures are collected on the website “Blanke Bedenken” (“Naked Concerns” in English). There you can also sign a petition demanding more PPE for frontline workers in Germany.
The Museum Is Closed by Tretyakovskaya Gallery
Let’s move from frontline workers to ordinary people. While the Russian Government released Stay-Home-Order and appealed to people not to leave their apartments without severe needs, the most famous Russian fine art museum Tretyakovskaya Gallery launched a series of pictures on their Social Media. People from famous Russian paintings were erased and disappeared. “They didn’t show up in the Museum. Like many people, our heroes stayed home during the COVID-19 lockdown,”—states the Museum on Social Media. Honestly, this is the best campaign I’ve seen since the pandemic started! It looks so simple, but at the same time, so up-to-date!
We’re never lost if we can find each other by Facebook
And finally, I encourage you to watch the Facebook commercial, “We’re never lost if we can find each other.” Facebook collected all famous, inspiring, happy, and sad videos, drawings, and photos from Social Media taken by their users and united them in one fantastic video. It’s sad and inspiring at the same time!
Thumbnail photo by Tretyakovskaya Gallery
