Our lives have become surrounded by technology and social media and this is starting to have an effect on our lives. You may well have come across the caption ‘Instagram vs Reality’ whereby there are two pictures. The first is most of the time perfect with the help of filters and editing, whereby the second is a raw real picture.
Another scenario you may have come across is where a parent shows off a photo of their child looking all cute and innocent, portraying the image of an angel. The next photo will then show the complete opposite, the child in a so-called meltdown thus portraying something far off an angel that was depicted in the previous photo. This has had a damaging effect on the art of taking a picture and it could be argued that this may be down to a constant problem where printers won’t print black.
However, all of this has led to the formation of HP’s latest campaign aptly named ‘Get Real’. The campaign is revolved around asking people about whether they’ve become adapted to common things. One of the major ones is responding ‘lol’ or ‘laugh out loud’ in response to a message they’ve received when they’re not actually laughing whatsoever. Or posting about your pets’ birthday on Facebook for attention rather than actually spending time with said pet.
The campaign is also supporting the printing line of the HP business. Promoting the idea that it is better to print off a photo so you have it physically and can stick it on the fridge, rather than posting it to Facebook or to Instagram in the hope that it will attract hundreds or thousands of likes or go viral.
Embracing old-school
HP’s newly appointed chief marketing officer, Vikrant Batra, claimed that the purpose behind the campaign was to promote products such as the Sprocket printer – designed to instantaneously print off photos from your smartphone and conveniently being pocket-sized. So that if you’re out on your travels, you can take a photo on your smartphone and have it printed out within minutes. Batra also went on to said “we’ve lost the digital and analogue balance in our lives”, “we strongly believe that we should be using tech – tech should not be using us. We have a fantastic, innovative portfolio that helps people connect the right digital part of their lives and create a lot more memories.”
HP worked in conjunction with GS&P in order to produce the video for this campaign. The first joint work between the two since they went their separate ways nearly a decade ago. Past campaigns that the two had worked on include ‘The Computer is Personal Again’ and ‘Everything is possible’.
Typical stereotypes are challenged
More recent campaigns produced by HP have focused mainly on the areas of both inclusion and diversity. For example, two years ago in 2017, the firm produced a video focused on the issue of LGBTQ+ mainly to promote and make people aware of it’s commitment to creating a welcoming and fostering workplace. In 2018, HP also carried out a social experiment that was designed to challenge typical stereotypes, in particular, what the ‘all American family’ should look like.
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