This Powerful VELUX Film is (Hopefully) a Breath of Fresh Air
A girl, a glass house, and no fresh air: these are the main ingredients of the video at the heart of roof window and skylight manufacturer, VELUX’s, ‘Indoor Generation’ campaign. The campaign, made in collaboration with Danish creative agency &Co., raises awareness of the fact that we spend 90% of our time indoors and how that can be critical to your health if you’re living in an unhealthy home (i.e. buildings that have damp, lack of daylight, inadequate heating during the winter or overheating problems). Problems that have been largely unknown to the general public until now.
The campaign is based on numerous academic research studies - both independent and conducted by VELUX’s in-house team of academic experts. Together, they unearthed many insights that led to today’s society being coined ‘The Indoor Generation’.
This remarkable, three-minute film has hit a nerve all over the world, with over 80 million views and counting. And according to Viral Thread, it is already the UK’s most-viewed branded video of 2018.
This is no coincidence. It’s down to careful planning.
“We wanted people to be able to recognize themselves as part of The Indoor Generation and really feel – both mentally and physically - the importance of this agenda. We set out to create a campaign that travels between people, and we managed that by tapping into intrinsically human insights - and by integrating the creative development with the distribution strategy from day one,” says &Co. Head of Brand Activation and Social, Morten Saxnaes.
“When we saw the mass of research and data, we were horrified,” adds Robert Cerkez, Creative Director and co-founder of &Co. Diving into the extensive research material collected by VELUX, including own research and studies by esteemed academic institutions such as University of Oxford, Harvard University and Fraunhofer IBP, main campaign insights were shaped:
• People spend 90% of their lives indoors
• Indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than outdoor air
• Damp and mouldy homes increase the risk of asthma by 40%
• Lack of daylight makes 15% of people sad
• Daylight can boost children’s learning by 15%
• Children’s bedrooms are often the most polluted
“Together with VELUX, we felt society at large had a right to know about this. So instead of talking about windows, we decided to talk about ‘the problem’,” continues Robert Cerkez of &Co. “For which, VELUX products are of course one of the solutions for the Indoor Generation, but only a part. The ‘Indoor Generation’ is breaking open a discussion between many stakeholders and the general public.”
