Jennifer Pollack and Gabriel Ferrer of alma hope that Global Citizen’s Wishful Thinking campaign will help close the inequality gap

Global Citizen’s Wishful Thinking campaign is a super ambitious project, since it seeks to get 100 million people involved in putting an end to extreme poverty between now and the year 2030, while overcoming the obstacles imposed over the past year by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected the entire world. The message promoted on Google was created by the multicultural agency alma. “During a global pandemic, any kind of creative project is a challenge. And this campaign is all about real people who have suffered its effects,” said Jennifer Pollack, group director of brand and consumer strategy at alma, For Gabriel Ferrer, creative director at alma, the challenge consists of finding a way to tell a captivating story about real people at a time when productions have more limitations than ever. “Though the folks in the commercial had been seriously affected by the pandemic, their enthusiasm when it came to telling their stories and helping others was truly inspiring.” “Let’s hope I could avoid badly ventilated areas, let’s hope I practiced social distancing, let’s hope I had had the resources to protect myself and others as well,” are typical of the thoughts that Global Citizen showed could be transformed, Pollack said. “When you work in advertising selling a product or service, the opportunities to use your creative message to do some good in the world don’t come all that often. But alma continuously seeks the occasions to do just that. Having the chance to work on a campaign that, with any luck, will change the lives of many people, is something very rare and motivating. As a campaign strategy, my mind is focused on creating empathy, which in turn makes me feel greater empathy at a personal level.” From a creative point of view, the director at In & Out Productions, Daniel Azancot, got the production going without problems. “Daniel was totally committed to the project and made it just as we had imagined: a series of stills in a powerful, emotionally moving film. And as is usual with these remote shoots, we stayed in continual communication by means of WhatsApp, Zoom and QTake, so that not one detail got away from us,” Ferrer said. With the final message, “Together we can turn these wishes into reality. Become a Global Citizen to increase equality,” the spot in 1 minute highlights the experiences of millions who cannot ensure the safety of their health due to their poverty. “The central theme of the story is that we should take nothing in our lives for granted. Many of us might be emerging from the pandemic, but many others might not. Many don’t have the option of working from their homes or of practicing social distancing because they have to support their families. They would love to have, at a minimum, the chance to follow the simplest rules to protect themselves. It’s important to remind people that it remains our responsibility to help others come out of the pandemic. If there’s anything we should all learn from this experience, it’s that we are all one and we must come out of this together to continue moving forward,” Pollack said. “The pandemic affects the vulnerable communities more and widens the gap of inequality. People with more resources, more income and greater access to vaccinations will do better than those who don’t have them. Global Citizen wishes to close that gap, and we believe that alma and this campaign do their bit to bring about positive changes,” Ferrer added.