Heartwarming Skype Campaign Digitally Reunites People for Family Portraits
Skype recently embarked on a touching ad campaign called Stay Together in which they use photography and the magic of the Internet to reunite families that live on opposite sides of the world by creating “impossible family portraits.”
The company got the idea from photographer John Clang and his well-known photo series of futuristic Skype family portraits called Being Together. Naturally, when they wanted to take their own swing at it for a heartwarming brand campaign, they got in touch with the man who had inspired them in the first place.
The campaign features three videos and three very different types of family. The top video features Denis, who escaped to the US from Uganda with only the clothes on his back and 5 dollars in his pocket. He stays in touch with his family through Skype, and thanks to Clang, he now has his first ever family portrait hanging on his wall.
The second video follows a zookeeper from the US who lived overseas in Australia for a time and grew very close to the people and animals she stayed with there. To her, family doesn’t have so much to do with blood, and her family portrait shows her and her extended “family” all holding one of the animals they care for.
Finally, the last portrait features Julia, a 10-year-old who moved away from Brazil with her immediate family, leaving her aunts, uncles and cousins behind. Her portrait shows her and her best friend and cousin Marina digitally reunited while still standing 4,000 miles apart.
The campaign certainly tugs at the old heart strings. If you want a chance to reconnect with your family (blood or otherwise) that is living far away, head over to Skype’s Staying Together website and tell them your story. They’re hosting a contest, and you could win your very own impossible family portrait as well as a trip to see your family in person on Skype’s dime.
To see more digital family portraits, check out our coverage of John Clang’s original Being Together series.
