REFLECTIONS ON INSPIRATION, EMPATHY AND HATERS IN THE AGE OF A PANDEMIC

As a Brazilian I’ve always been a hopeless optimist. Our country, for a lot of historical reasons, teaches us from a really early age to use creativity to go around limitations and to try to make the of difficult times. As a matter of fact, that was one of the reasons why a poor community two miles from where I was born in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, at the height of the ZIKA crisis, invented a mosquito trap out of Coca-Cola used plastic bottles, since they couldn’t afford the industrialized repellents.

The reason why I’ve shifted my career from consumer to healthcare advertising is because of the fact that I was diagnosed with Diabetes 10 years ago. At that time, I started to use my creativity and resources to try to diagnose patients with diabetes early and that has created a sense of purpose that I’d never experienced before in my life. Since I’ve moved to the USA to work in healthcare I’ve tried to look for that feeling for all of the brands I’ve worked on. Healthcare Advertising is personal to me. Although I’ve gotten a few Xenophobic hate messages for over the past 4 and a half years, I’ve never really let it bother me. I’m on a mission. A mission to use creativity to save and change people’s lives. And It’s been working out really well for my clients and I.

A few weeks ago, in an attempt to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Bloc, through an insight by Prodeep Bose created SafeCode. The invention is really simple: combining two existing technologies – UV-C light, FDA approved as a sanitizing agent, and the ubiquitous barcode reader to scan packages, to limit the risk of exposure to Coronavirus through packages shipped around the world. We’ve made an agreement as an agency to give away this invention free of charge to anyone in the world who could benefit from it.

Great traction, amazing interest from companies, great press and one fake profile on LinkedIn with no connections and interactions questioning the legitimacy of the idea and if it was meant for “awards”. Firstly, the comment mentioned an article that leveraged a completely different technology and secondly, all of the awards have been cancelled this year, so the basis for that comment is fundamentally false. At the very least, this idea inspires companies big and small to innovative technologies to rethink bio-safety as part of their supply chain and end to end delivery networks.

The only reason I’ve written this article is to share the flip side of this story: the power of inspiration. Let us be inspired by Ricardo Dias from INBEV, transforming plastic bottles into thousands of protection masks for healthcare workers. Like Rich Levy, creating the Intubation Box, to protect our healthcare workers from getting infected in the front line. Like @Matt Eastwood not only encouraging us to clap in tribute to our healthcare heroes every day at 7pm, but also coming up with ways to educating and supporting patients through the beautiful “Spread facts, not fear” campaign for Mucinex. Like Fred Levron and Gabriel Schmitt giving away thousands of whoppers for healthcare workers and brands like Dove redefining the meaning of beauty through the raw portraits of doctors and nurses. There are more great people doing good in this line of work than cynical people trying to tear them down. Let’s join and support them.

I hope one of our biggest learnings after all of it is, as a society, is that we treat ourselves a tiny bit more respectfully and use our time to make an impact. Invest in self-knowledge and empathy. And may the Easter spirit of renewal inspires us to celebrate not only the health workers in the front line of this pandemic, but also the creative minds and brands using their time and resources to help.

Stay Safe and Healthy,

Best

BR