My LinkedIn feed dropped a gem in my lap over the long weekend; a reflection on a marketing campaign by Movistar, a Spanish telecommunications company.
The campaign, titled Escape from your phone, was released in Mexico in May 2021.
The central message of this campaign revolves around the idea that being constantly locked into our phones can cause us to miss out on important joys and experiences in life.
Movistar was encouraging its users to disconnect from their devices and reconnect with the world around them.
The Key Aspects Of The Escape From Your Phone Campaign
Here are some of the key messages that Movistar used in its campaign:
Awareness of Digital Disconnection
The campaign highlights the importance of balancing digital engagement with real-world interactions. It suggests that by putting our phones down, we can rediscover meaningful connections and experiences that we might otherwise overlook.
Creative Approach
While specific details about the campaign's execution are limited in the provided search results, Movistar is known for using innovative and engaging methods to convey their messages. For instance, in a previous campaign, they used a unique digital storytelling tool that allowed viewers to experience dual video perspectives simultaneously to explain and fight back against bullying and cyberbullying.
Brand Positioning
Through this campaign, Movistar positions itself as a socially responsible brand that is concerned about the well-being of its users. By encouraging mindful phone usage, the company demonstrates its commitment to promoting a healthy digital lifestyle.
It's worth noting that while this campaign focuses on encouraging users to switch off their phones at times, Movistar has also been involved in other socially conscious initiatives, like the Cyberbullying example, above, and the risks of online gaming for minors, showcasing their broader commitment to digital safety and responsible technology use.
My Three Takeaways From This Messaging
This is smart marketing and important marketing and I hope the company is authentically behind this latest campaign for a few reasons.
1. Jonathon Haidt has clearly drawn together research in his book, The Anxious Generation, that our addiction to smartphones and the social media channels we connect through them, not only harm our experience of each other and life (I saw someone at an intimate concert yesterday spend two thirds of it just scrolling through their phone) but subtle things like parents of newborns having their gaze into their children's eyes robbed by their phones. This disastrously disrupts profoundly important bonding, communication, and encoding that these precious moments provide (or would provide) new generations.
2. I hope they are authentically engaged with this messaging unlike Meta et al, because those insidious social channels SAY they care about our wellbeing while actively undermining it in their greedy rush to plunder psychology for tricks on how extract as many waking moments from us as possible.
3. One comment in the original article I sawy on LinkedIn asked, should devices come with a health warning that excessive use can harm relationships? That is a novel idea, probably ineffective for many, but might just plant a seed.
I was one of the naive marketers enticed by the joy of connection in 2005 and after nearly 20 years of exploring and exploiting these channels and tools, I am looking back on a wasteland of human interaction.
I have long been perplexed by the ways that great civilisations in the past ended up failing by sabotaging themselves. And here we are, a fine and creative and social species, shrinking our world down to a smart-stupid little black screen, just as we are poised to "cut out the middle man" of messy human interaction by courting frictionless relationships with AI bots.
That said, there have been some wonderful moments and gains along the way but I fear the dark aspects of this part of human history are only truly becoming evident now, long after the majority has lost the will and willingness to step back from the abyss of being lulled into soothing doomscrolling.
Here's to the ongoing challenge of getting the balance right between screens and "in-the-flesh reality", in our marketing and in life.