Thomson Reuters - Unboxing the truth

Today there are 40 million slaves worldwide. But slavery is impossible to see, hidden deep within supply chains. Thomson Reuters Foundation is a leader in combating slavery, providing companies a program which identifies slavery in their production processes. We needed to create a groundswell among consumers who aren’t talking about the issue (there's <400k posts about Forced Labor).

So we created products in slavery-prevalent industries—shoes (fashion), makeup (beauty), headphones (technology)—each with hidden facts about slavery disguised in the design, symbolic of the hidden issue. Then we went where consumers get informed. Unboxing has grown into a phenomenon which one in five people on YouTube is watching right now. We sent the products to top influencers with 2.5 million combined subscribers to unbox the truth.

Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day
Client: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Role: Design Lead
Creative Direction: Walt Connelly & Chris Rowson
Creative Team: Alex Holm, Avi Steinbach

Makeup

As Shameless Maya (1.1M YouTube subscribers) unboxed the one-of-a-kind custom makeup, it detailed the illegal way most mica – a key mineral in makeup – is mined. The video received hundreds of comments, many vowing to do more research and change their buying habits.