Project—

Seeing by Hearing

2018 October 19 , Banphaeo General Hospital

Background:

The Eye Department of Ban Phaeo Hospital, founded in 1995, started as a small department of the hospital, averaging at 30 patients per day. However, that number soared to 500 patients per day as Thailand's aging population issue worsen. The hospital needed to expand and be better equipped with proper medical equipment. Therefore, an engaging donation campaign was created.

Idea:

The campaign has no celebrity, no engaging visuals because of zero advertising budget. The film "Seeing by Hearing" takes everyone on an emotional journey by experiencing what blind people felt. We got to hear the story and hardships that Ban Phaeo Hospital and their patients had gone through for almost 5 minutes before seeing what it's really like as an average person.

Result:

The hospital received 21 million Baht (locally and internationally) within the first month after the film's release. The donation keeps on coming as the film's being shared more and more every day on Facebook and the new facilities that they had hoped for looks brighter than ever.

CES 2019: The Brand and Consumer Takeaways

January 17, 2019
by Ben Levine, Peter Fasano, and Mike Tidmarsh

It’s mid-January, which means it’s time for every ad agency, technology company, data firm, and armchair blogger to write their recap of what happened at CES and what it means for our industries and the world around us.

And while we at Ogilvy are here shamelessly contributing to that post-Vegas noise, our hope is to provide a bit of a unique point of view. Our perspective is not so much centered around the technologies of CES as artifacts of progress or innovation, but instead what all of the innovation that surrounds CES means for consumers and the brands they interact with.

On Day One of CES, we wandered around the convention center floor. There, we saw a layout very similar to CES of past years: We entered through a parking lot full of autonomous vehicles into a central hall of major TV, phone and computer manufacturers. There was an entire annex for drones. Another for earth-bound robots. We wandered past a notably empty and abandoned area that had been reserved for cryptocurrencies. Past that, a field of people watching TV screens in beanbag chairs—the telltale sign of eSports in action.

Of course, there were some areas that seemed new or larger than they had been. There was a ton of 5G technologies featured, and even a healthy contingent of…connected adult device companies…in a not-so-nondescript corner of the hall.

But as we wandered, we found ourselves talking more about the practical applications of the technologies featured, rather than their novelty. As we were taking a look at a machine-learning ping pong robot, Peter muttered, “Iteration. Not innovation.” And while we don’t think that’s an original phrase coinage (even when talking about CES), it was an extremely accurate description for almost everything we saw last week.