The very company that has implored us for years to “look inside” for authenticity has now asked us to widen our vision for a different kind of empowerment. The result is a wonderfully effective example of aligning creative communication with strategic brand goals.
Computer chip maker Intel has launched a new ad campaign highlighting its sponsorship of the 10×10 Fund to educate girls around the world. The cornerstone of that sponsorship is a new documentary called Girl Rising. (Figure 1) It’s a strategically smart corporate social responsibility commitment (CSR) that uniquely takes Intel’s brand of empowering technology and extends it to empowering girls in underdeveloped countries.
Figure 1 – Intel’s ad campaign promoting the 10×10 Fund’s Girl Rising documentary
But the genius of the new ad campaign developed by Venables Bell & Partners is the lesson it offers in smartly using several psychological communication theories and applying it to advertising to meet brand objectives.
The campaign cleverly leverages Martin Fishbein’s Expectancy-Value Theory to change attitudes about young girls by affecting beliefs and expectations about their role in modern society.
Figure 2 – Appraisal Theory
But the ad also superbly models Appraisal Theory by using the power of emotion and mood to establish a cognitive connection to the message of girl empowerment. (Figure 2) The ad brilliantly begins by making the viewer aware of the social norms that entrap girls in many emerging counties. The awareness leads to an emotional response that forms new thinking about a social call and possible interest in the cause.
But most important that positive feeling about the ad also creates a positive feeling toward the brand. And in this case it lends awareness to Intel’s CSR commitment.
It’s not just communication theory coming alive, it’s strategic, and dare I say… Intel-igent.
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