Social Media Guard, an international campaign
Nearly nine million YouTube users have seen Coca-Cola‘s 2014 campaign about spreading the correct use of social media. With the campaign’s name Social Media Guard Coca-Cola wanted to remind us that sometimes social media are in danger of “monopolizing” our lives. It used a video showing several situations: a family sitting at the table, a young couple, a mother walking with her child in her arms, a group of friends at dinner. These worlds would be almost perfect except for the fact that interpersonal relationships were entirely missing. No one meets anyone else’s eyes because they are all busy using smartphones to chat or post photos.
Thanks to Social Media Guard, a sort of red plastic cone (of the kind often used with dogs and cats as part of treatment) that forces people to look up from their mobile phones and tablets, they can go back to looking into each other’s eyes. It is like seeing the world for the first time… The campaign’s message is very simple: “The Social Media Guard takes the “social” out of media and puts it back into your life” while the video’s closing caption reads: “Share a real moment with Coca-Cola.“