SS+K

Keep Calm & Remember it’s @TimeToWashHands

As COVID-19 spreads across the country, panic follows. One of the most basic things that we can do to help stop the spread of COVID-19 is to properly wash our hands. As simple as that may seem, it is still one of the best defenses to staying healthy through this pandemic. 

SS+K, in partnership with goat milk soap maker, Beekman1802, has launched a PSA social account that sends friendly, periodic reminders to anyone who follows to wash their hands. Follow on Twitter at @TimeToWashHands and on Instagram at @TimeToWashHands_?

Influential partners, like Katie Couric, are helping support the effort to help stop the spread of the virus by sharing short video clips of themselves washing their hands for 20 seconds.

Claudia Cukrov | SS+K Blog

If you’d like to take part in our Time to Wash Hands Challenge and help stop the spread of COVID-19, just post your handwashing video to Twitter or Instagram—Instagram Stories count too—and tag @TimeToWashHands. It’s a small, but important way to help our fellow neighbors stay protected. And as we see it, every hand washed helps.

Instructions: 

  1. Follow @TimeToWashHands on Twitter and @TimeToWashHands_ on Instagram
  2. Create a video of you washing your hands
    1. Sing a 20-second song like Happy Birthday, have fun, or even just say “time to wash hands!” 
  3. Share your video on Twitter and tag @TimeToWashHands and/or Instagram @TimeToWashHands_
  4. Challenge someone else to go wash their hands and make a video to keep it going! 

And If you don’t have time for a video, but still want to help get the word out, following and retweeting/resharing the account will help us remind as many people as possible to wash up.

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Wells Fargo Believes Americans Can’t Afford Unaffordable Housing

When Wells Fargo approached SS+K to work on the philanthropy campaign to help launch their $1 billion dollar commitment to affordability housing solutions, it was a natural move for SS+K to accept the challenge in addressing this mounting national crisis. Working to shed light on a problem that many Americans are either are not aware of or not closely related to is exactly the kind of issue SS+K loves to tackle.  

SS+K found that the creative work needed to illustrate how this issue affects everyday Americans, bringing to life the human stories of those affected by the housing affordability crisis and share the tangible actions being taken by Wells Fargo. 

Originally SS+K worked with outgoing CEO Jon Campbell to deliver a Manifesto speech about the housing crisis and Wells Fargo’s plan to address it. This speech was presented at the Social Innovation Summit in June. This declaration led to the inspiration of a full-body of creative work that is running this fall on Sunday morning news programming, such as ‘This Week’ on ABC, ‘Meet the Press’ on NBC and CBS’s Face the Nation. Full and junior pages ads ran in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico, The Hill, and The Washington Post. 

The TV work uses the construct of Americans living ‘far from home’ due to the lack of affordable housing and illustrates this through long, early or late commutes which makes it harder for people to be with loved ones. The voiceover starts with ‘Rising rent and home prices are pushing Americans further from the places they work. This is straining the backbone of our communities. To do our part, Wells Fargo has committed one billion dollars over the next six years to develop housing affordability solutions.’

Those solutions include addressing homelessness, available and affordable rentals, transitional housing, and homeownership. With the use of fact-based statistics and real-life examples of the tradeoffs hard-working Americans make to keep their homes along with concrete examples of the work Wells Fargo is doing, the campaign helps show that while this is a national crisis it can be addressed–if we all work together.

In addition to television and print, social networking creative illustrated the real-life tradeoffs people make to pay their rent or their mortgage. For example, in ‘Tradeoffs’, a mother is feeding her child fresh fruit because: ‘She shouldn’t have to choose between nutritious food for her family and a place to live.’ Other work uses statistics to help communicate the real-world consequences of the lack of affordable housing such as: ‘The median rent has grown 12 times faster than the median income since 1960,’ and ‘Every 100 affordable homes can inject $7.9 million into the local economy.’

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Wells Fargo Commits to Working With People With Disabilities, Always.

When people hear or see that someone has a disability, there is a natural tendency to want to help that person and do things for them—usually without their direct involvement. Society has a habit of focusing on what people with disabilities can and can’t do—instead of what people with disabilities want to do.

We launched Wells Fargo’s “With, Always” campaign to show what’s possible when people are given the opportunity to realize their professional dreams and to establish Wells Fargo’s commitment to working with people with disabilities, always. Much of the effort came together with the direct collaboration and leadership of people who identify as disabled, including Jessica Oddi, the artist who created the heart of the marketing campaign’s portrait illustrations and Lawrence Carter-Long, who provided audio content. Activist Liz Jackson, creator of The Disabled List, also contributed to the effort. Kathy Martinez, SVP and head of Disability and Accessibility Strategy at Wells Fargo is the client lead; she was born blind.

The work, told through Jessica Oddi’s art, celebrates some of the significant contributions people with disabilities have made to society including Louis Braille, Stephen Farffler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Farida Bedwei, Justin Dart and Vint Cerf.

The campaign launched in celebration of National Disability Employment Awareness Month this past October, debuting at the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange on October 3rd, where Kathy Martinez and Wells Fargo CMO Jamie Moldafsky rang the bell. The work appeared as part of an activation experience at the No Barriers Summit in NYC on October 4th-6th, an interactive event focused on creating a world of greater possibilities. No Barriers is an organization Wells Fargo has supported since 2014. All of the “With, Always” efforts were accompanied by Braille, audio and ASL elements to ensure the campaign is as accessible as possible.

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Slow Down!! Text What’s Tough to Say With ‘To Be Honest’ Sticker Pack

We’ve been thinking a lot about the #MeToo movement and how to help young people navigate some of the tough conversations about sexual boundaries. Today we launched “To Be Honest”, an iOS + Android sticker pack aimed at helping users set expectations, explore sexual boundaries, and raise red flags when things go too far on a platform where these early intimate expectations are often set: text.

The stickers arm both parties with clear language to express and begin a dialogue around everything from “That was fun” and “Are you comfortable?” to “No nudes” and “Blocked and reported”. For Jenny Mauric and Christina Bull, the design challenge was moving beyond the text to bring real emotive meaning to these messages. The team paired phrases with relatable poses and expressions of classical sculptures – deities and powerful people from history that bring a humorous, yet serious element to every message. Rather than just the sender simply telling someone to back off, Poseidon is telling them to back off.

“Between #MeToo and the recent division swirling around the Kavanaugh hearings, consent and larger still, rape culture are areas we desperately need to be discussing more,” said Claudia Cukrov.

 

“Consent is an incredibly complex issue, and it can change in an instant. ‘To Be Honest’ isn’t designed to be a solution to these issues, but similar to reaction GIFs – provide a low-barrier tool to express boundaries we sometimes can’t find the words to say.”

Why a text sticker pack?

  • It doesn’t matter how experienced, confident, outspoken or prepared a person of any age may be, consent conversations are hard to have, especially when it involves a power structure or a someone they care about.
  • When it comes to uncomfortable conversations, text [through emails, messaging apps, and SMS] over face-to-face conversations offer the luxury of time and format to carefully consider and construct the words we use. It’s no surprise breaking up over text message is increasingly common these days – it takes the confrontation out of an uncomfortable situation.
  • Digging deeper into the dating world where some of these expectations around sexual boundaries are set, we realized early conversations really do revolve around the text messaging space.

‘To Be Honest’ is available now for free in the App Store and Google Play Store.

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THE NCAA CELEBRATES COLLEGE SPORTS’ ROLE IN BRINGING DIVERSE PEOPLE TOGETHER

Our newest NCAA PSA spot titled “Label Me” launched on Selection Sunday and we couldn’t be more excited. Read more about how college sports play a role in bringing student-athletes together in Adweek; NCAA Launches Latest Brand PSA Focused on Inclusion.

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How the NCAA threw a wrench in the female empowerment trend.

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SS+K, Bully Pulpit Interactive, and Frontier Solutions have been working with the NCAA since July 2015. And in that time, we have helped their organization both understand and engage new audiences about their passion for creating opportunity for college athletes: through their commitment to academics, well-being and fairness. So when the ask came to empower female athletes in ad, we, two female creatives, were pissed. (more…)

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We Go #0to60 For The President’s Council

Today, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, & Nutrition (PCFSN), we launched the “History of Exercise” with Funny or Die.

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BFF Trump in Your Face!

At SS+K we work across many types of brands, but once every four years we get to tap into our political roots and take part in the election, and what an election year this is! When our right to choose what we do with our bodies, who we marry, how we’re seen in the world and so much more is at stake, we had to do something.
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This is what we love about college sports

We’re happy to announce the launch of four TV PSAs for the NCAA. They go live tonight during March Madness:




The PSAs remind us of what’s most important about being a student-athlete: defining your own version of success through a college education.

Shaquille O’Neal” and “Billie Jean King” feature these two iconic athletes, who found their own path to success and are now watching the next generation work toward theirs. In both cases, sports have allowed these two legends to accomplish so much outside of the game. “Courts” and “Fields,” the other two spots, feature quotes and speeches from legendary basketball coach John Wooden and Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks.

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Moving Through Glass on CNN

We are thrilled about the terrific coverage by CNN today of Moving Through Glass, one of our SS+K Labs projects.

Moving Through Glass is the first-ever augmented reality application providing round-the-clock aid for people living with Parkinson’s. We have been working closely with Mark Morris Dance Group / Dance for PD® on the project for the last year. It is now making its way into the hands of researchers at Weil-Cornell Medical University and Stanford University, and will be available to students at Dance for PD’s flagship studio in Brooklyn.

We look forward to having more to share about Moving Through Glass in the weeks to come.

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