The Campaign

Rather than simply delivering a unilateral message saying ‘Let’s respect old people’, we tried a more emotional approach. The idea was to provide the opportunity for a ‘vicarious experience’ of standing in the shoes of an old person. We physically transformed a young guy into an old man, had him spend a day in Busan, and filmed his day as a digital video. For the ‘one day experiment’, the subject used an 'old-age simulation kit' that imposes the uncomfortable sensations of advancing age. In order to visually transform the subject into an elderly man in his 80s, we enlisted a special make-up team from Korea’s major film industry. We had the subject experience public spaces such as streets, public transit, a coffee shop, a park, and a college campus as an old man.

Execution

For the project, we selected a subject who is young male in his 20s and possesses enough acting ability act as an old person. The subject used an 'old-age simulation kit' that imposes the uncomfortable sensations of advancing age. The special aging make-up took about two weeks. A mold of the subject’s face was cast in advance, then a mask was produced, and finally the completed make-up was applied on the morning of the experiment in a process that took four hours. The path the subject would follow was planned to effectively show the ‘life of an elderly person’. Has an old man, the subject moved around in public spaces we routinely navigate, such as streets, public transit, a coffee shop, a park, and a college campus. The one day experiment was produced as a video (6min 37sec) and released on social media in February 2017.

1) The video received 1.5 million views and 90,000 shares. 2) Of the 3,500 comments collected, 97% were positive, and the comments clearly showed that young people’s perceptions were changing for the better. Examples include: “I’m going to be nice to the elderly,” “I may get lonely when I’m old, too,” and “As young people, let’s try to take the first step to get closer.” 3) Within a week of the video’s release, it was featured in Korea’s major broadcasts including ‘CBS Kim Hyun-Jung's News Show’, Korea's most prominent current-events radio program, and YTN cable news network. Korea’s largest terrestrial networks, KBS and EBS, also featured the ‘Older People’s Hearts’ in television documentary programs. 4) Many old-age experience TV programs were produced in Korea in formats similar to ‘Older People’s Hearts’. 5) It was featured as a hot topic on the main page of Daum, Korea’s most popular portal site.

The Situation

In Korea these days, the social phenomenon of hostility towards older adults is intensifying, and intergenerational conflict seems to be reaching a tipping point. Within this situation, Busan Metropolitan City needed a public relation effort to encourage acceptance of alienated and rejected older adults as members of society. It is not just about producing a measureable outcomes but changing perception of young people who don’t love their elders anymore. Also, we wanted to give Korean society a new perspective on issues of the aged, and formally open a dialogue on cross-generational communication.

The Strategy

Our target audience was young Koreans from teens to 30s who have an antipathy to the elderly. We knew that simply lecturing them was not enough to resolve their disgust towards the oldest. That is why we made a video showing the process of a subject spending a day in the city. It was intended that viewers could witness how life as an old person is hard and lonely, and thought ‘this could be my future'. To spread the video as widely as we could on a limited budget, we utilized Busan City’s official social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, and the Korean social networking service KakaoStory. It was one that would easily reach young people, who habitually consume video content on social media. It was also the most effective and efficient way to make 'older people's hearts' relatable to the audience in their homes, offices, and public transit.