Shortlisted: Ocean Crucial Creative 2020

Ocean announce the launch of Crucial Creative for 2020, in place of the annual Ocean Digital Creative Competition. With a £1 million prize fund to help galvanise advertisers and agencies to action post COVID-19.

L’Oréal is known for helping people feel their best. At a time of unprecedented social change, we want to demonstrate that our care stretches way beyond appearance. 

The pandemic has disrupted our lives, highlighting inequalities and changing the way we all interact. This is especially true for kids. After months of being stuck at home, children are itching to get out, to see friends, to run around and of course TOUCH everything. 

So this summer, we will create a SAFE, inspiring place for ALL kids to learn and play. 

Science and technology is part of our DNA, it’s where every product we make begins. At our L’Oréal Young Scientist Centre kids become scientists for the day, testing ideas and designing experiments. The whole experience ignites a passion for scientific discovery and encourages curiosity-driven learning.

So we want to take Science out of the classroom, to Out of Home. 

Welcome to the L'Oréal Outdoor Science Lab.

Imagine Ocean Outdoor units suddenly turning into the biggest, interactive and completely TOUCHLESS science playground. 

We’ll utilise Ocean’s tech to deliver engaging, touchless experiments. The whole initiative will be connected by a dedicated online Young Scientist portal, where kids can log progress and claim awards and badges. They’ll also get access to additional resources to learn and experiment with their parents, even after they’ve left the High Street. 

Our experiences are designed for kids to learn about the science behind the products keeping them safe:

1. ‘How Does it Work?’ (Birmingham/Manchester Loops and Canary Wharf Network)
A series of short, fun, interactive mini-games e.g. “How Does Anti-Bac Work?” kids will explore the science of anti-bac, learning how alcohol dissolves the outer coating of bacteria, so it spills its guts! Using Ocean’s ‘facial detection’, kids can ‘dissolve’ the AR germs. 

2. ‘Quiz Labs’ (Birmingham/Manchester Loops and Canary Wharf Network)
A series of interactive yes/no quizzes. “Soap is almost 5000 years old?”, “Gelatine makes anti-bac gloopy?”. Kids answer questions by nodding or shaking their heads via ‘facial detection’. And the answers? Yes (soap is around 4800 years old) and No (Glycerol makes anti-bac gloopy)

3. ‘Why Does Soap Bubble?’ (Ultra-Leap London, Birmingham, Manchester)
An epic interactive learning experience, all about soap! Kids can learn ‘why soap bubbles’ and practice ‘being a soap molecule’. Using gestures they’ll rub their hands together to make as many bubbles as possible - removing gunk from grubby hands. They’ll even FEEL the bubbles thanks to the haptic feedback. And if you successfully clean your hands, we’ll fill the space with real bubbles! 

4. ‘The LIVE Lab’ (Live Stream screens)
A series of live streams from the L'Oréal Lab. Think Horrible Histories, but super science. Kids, safely seated, watch real LIVE science experiments. 

5. ‘Get science famous!’ (Piccadilly Circus)
The cherry on top of this epic science endeavour? Parents share pictures of their little scientists conducting home experiments (via #LorealOutdoorScienceLab on social), for a chance to be featured on the world's most iconic screen - London Piccadilly!