Love Has No Labels Campaign Launches "Meet John Smith" Video Series with Facebook's Creative Shop Studio

NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ad Council, a non-profit organization and the largest producer of public service campaigns in the U.S., worked with Facebook to launch "Meet John Smith," an extension of the iconic, Emmy-award winning Love Has No Labels campaign. The creative includes a series of new videos, filmed in Facebook's new vertical ad format, featuring diverse people from throughout the country with the most common name in America, John Smith, to exemplify the diversity that makes up America and promote inclusion. The videos will debut on Facebook today in an effort to further the campaign's message of acceptance of all communities, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, or ability.

"At a time when it feels hard for our country to find common ground, it is important to remind people of the beautiful diversity that makes up our country—a diversity that should not only be accepted but also celebrated," said Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council. "We hope that this poignant creative will encourage viewers to examine the critical role each of us plays in creating an inclusive and accepting environment for others."

Created by Facebook's Creative Shop Studio, the long-form video and shorter cut-downs show John Smiths from all different backgrounds (age, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, and race) meeting for the first time to share their personal experiences with bias and reflect on other times they've felt accepted. By exposing people to these real stories, viewers are challenged to examine their own biases and encouraged to celebrate the diversity that makes up America.

Love Has No Labels, created in partnership with R/GA, launched nationwide in February 2015. The initial video, filmed on Valentine's Day, features real people in diverse relationships spanning different backgrounds and encourages viewers to question their assumptions of what constitutes friendship, romantic love and family. Since the campaign's first video debuted, it has been viewed over 164 million times making it the 2^nd most viewed social good video of all-time. As a result, there have been over 4.1 million sessions on lovehasnolabels.com, where visitors were offered a quiz to examine their own biases. Since the launch of the campaign, significantly more adults agree that they can create a more accepting and inclusive environment (61% in March 2015 to 71% in October 2016).

"We Are America," an extension of the Love Has No Labels campaign, launched in July 2016 with a video featuring WWE SuperStar John Cena. The creative celebrates the diversity that makes up America by enumerating some of the many labels Americans proudly use to define themselves—Latino, disabled, lesbian, Muslim, senior citizen, African American and others. This video has been viewed over 47 million times, shared 1 million times, and liked over 465,000 times. To date, the award-winning Love Has No Labels campaign has received over $30 million in donated media.

Love Has No Labels has been supported by an unprecedented group of campaign partners, including founding partners The Coca-Cola Company, P&G, Unilever and State Farm®, and recent partners Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson and others. In addition to funding the campaign, brand partners show their support during the year through on and offline activations including social influencer programs, social messaging, employee engagement, events, and more.

To learn more, visit Love Has No Labels' website and join the campaign's social communities on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Ad Council
The Ad Council is a private, non-profit organization with a rich history of marshaling volunteer talent from the advertising and media industries to deliver critical messages to the American public. To learn more about the Ad Council and its campaigns, visit www.adcouncil.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or view our PSAs on YouTube.

SOURCE The Ad Council

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