Here’s our selection of the latest in video communications from alternative fairy-tales to kinetic sport pictograms to apocalypse-style trailers. For more from #CommunicateLens, follow @Communicatemag.

Health.io

Yonatan Adiri, founder and CEO of Healhty.io, the only health start-up that offers FDA-cleared home urine test equivalent to lab-based devices, created a short explainer video on the ‘unicorn’ versus ‘camel’ companies found within digital health. Adiri clears up the confusion many people have about the digital health industry as a whole, which Adiri defines as a continuum.

 With the help of graphics, small texts and emojis, which make the video more interesting and interactive, Adiri highlights the difference between consumer-facing, wellness ‘unicorn’ companies like Fitbit, which are FDA-cleared and don’t need, clinical grade ‘camel’ companies working to digitise medical processes that do require FDA approval. The unicorns, so named because they exist in a lush environment, take risk and grow rapidly because they not in clinical grade domain, while the ‘camels’ can’t do that because they are dealing directly with people’s health. Adiri suggests they adopt a ‘camel’ mentality based on endurance which can take them across the desert. By using the camel/unicorn analogy and different visuals, the video is able to explain a complicated and at times confusing industry in simple terms.

National Deaf Children’s Society

The National Deaf Children’s Society teamed up with Red Bee Creative to produce a two-minute video to celebrate the launch of its new multi-year campaign to get more deaf young people into jobs that inspire them. The initiative, which was inspired by research that shows deaf people are twice as likely to be unemployed as hearing people, shows deaf people can do any type of job from a Marvel superhero to a DJ to a doctor. The video is narrated by deaf Doctor Who actress Sophie Stone who lists, in both English and sign language, all the various jobs deaf people can do, while short clips featuring 30 different deaf adults doing these jobs rolls in the background.

 At the end of the video, Stone says, “deaf works when it doesn’t let other people tell it what to dream,” highlighting the fact that the hearing impaired should not be curtailed by what other people think of their disability. The campaign was co-created with 19 deaf young people who decided on its direction by researching why the issue matters and consulting with other deaf young people about how it should look and feel so to make sure to reflected real experiences. “Deaf Works Everywhere sets the standard for collaborative campaign design. From inception right through to execution we worked openly with the National Deaf Children’s Society team and our audience of deaf young people, to create a campaign whose empowering message and bold tone is ‘with them’ not ‘for them’.  We couldn’t be more proud of the end result and the positive feedback from user testing,” says Phoebe Hainsworth, Red Bee creative’s campaign planner. 

Pure Leaf

Goodbye ‘once upon a time’ hello ‘once upon a no’. Iced tea brewer Pure Leaf featured American actress Amy Poehler in a video series titled ‘once upon a no’, in which female characters from the classic fairy-tales Princess and the Pea, Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel are empowered to say no.. Poehler starts by recounting the familiar fairy-tale acted out with small mannequin figures until the moment in which the female characters would acquiesce to a demand, when she suddenly flips it 360 degrees. When the witch asks Rapunzel to let her hair down so she can use it to climb to the tower, the princess gives a flat ‘no’. She says, “What do you think these are? Hair extensions? This is real hair, I’ve got split ends on my split ends,” before she decides to get a pixie cut and have the prince come to her with a bottle of iced tea. Pure Leaf’s alternative fairy-tales position the company squarely alongside the female empowerment movement. Poehler is Pure Leaf’s new spokeswoman in the broader ‘No is beautiful’ campaign which women by encouraging them to say no more often.

Tokyo 2020

For this first time in the history of Olympic and Paralympic Games, Tokyo 2020 unveiled the official kinetic sport pictograms, which cover 33 Olympic sports and 22 Paralympic sports. The pictograms, which are designed to subtly communicate the characteristics and athleticism of each sport while also highlighting the dynamism of the athletes, are innovative in its design. Appearing as a series of three movements (appear, static, disappear) that flow together to convey action, the pictograms are able to recreate 3D movement of athletes in two dimensions. This action and dynamisms, together with the happy background music interrupted by the sounds of cheering crowds, almost gives the audience a sense of watching real athletes.

The original design, while honouring the legacy of the past Games, symbolise the modern era and highlight how the 2020 Games will be the most innovative ever. Japanese motion designer Kota Iguchi, who oversaw the development of the kinetic pictograms says, “The new kinetic sport pictograms will broaden the appeal of each sport by means of their beautiful and more easily conveyed expressions. I hope that they will brighten up each of the events and, while a creation of the Tokyo 2020 Games, I hope they will be passed on to future Games as a legacy for the future, as well as inspiring video designers in other countries.”

Volvo

Volvo trucks has always put road safety at their forefront of company culture, establishing an Accident Research Team in 1969. The Swedish-based vehicle manufacturer equip their trucks with technologies and systems, like the night mode, that help prevent the errors that cause 90% of all traffic accidents. To reflect this company policy, in its latest video campaign showcasing their new lines of trucks, Volvo created a cinematic-style minute and a half video ‘The tower feat. Roger Alm’, featuring a colossal 15-metre, 58-tonne truck tower. On top of the four trucks, which will represent about two thirds of Volvo Truck’s deliveries in Europe, stands the president of the company, Roger Alm., He stands with open arms and a proud look, showcasing that the trucks are safety-approved and can brace the apocalypse-style scenery that is raging around him. Markus Wikström, part of the engineering team behind the tower says, “It took about a month to design and build the tower and make sure it was safe to drive. Essentially, this was made possible thanks to the sturdy construction truck, the Volvo FMX, and its new 38-tonne bogie being able to carry the weight of the others. But it also required a steady speed and course, accomplished by the Volvo Dynamic Steering technology and a skilled truck driver."

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