Portugal Tourism's new ad talks of hope while the world locks itself

There’s a quote from the movie The Shawshank Redemption and it goes like this: “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Hope is something the world needs right now. Battling perhaps its worst health crisis ever, countries have isolated themselves from the world and forced its people to stay in their homes hoping this kind of lockdown will halt the deadly virus’ spread; it has already claimed over 48,000 lives according to worldometer.

During such a testing time, one couldn’t have imagined a tourism board to show a new ad. Well, that is exactly what ‘Visit Portugal’ did.

Titled, ‘Can't Skip Hope’, the ad is less promotion of the country and more an ode to nature and human resilience - it speaks about how we all need to slow down so that when the good days return, and they will, we will be able to appreciate better and in a new light.

At the start of the ad, there are two important messages.

The first one says, “The footage you are about to see was captured when we could spend time outside.” - a reminder of the times we’re in and how we took ‘spend time outside’ as just another routine activity.

The second one says, “The narrator’s voice was recorded at home on a smartphone” - a note on how people across the world are using technology to get work done from their homes.

The narration is poetic and poignant with lines such as:

“To take a break, for the world.”

“It’s time to stop.”

“Time to make a pause so that we can play again.”

“To think of everyone and meet no one.”

“To reset. Recenter.”

It’s meant to tell everyone that it is the right time to take a step back, rethink who we are as individuals, communities, and species, because all thing things we love - beaches, nature, landscapes, and everything else will be waiting for us.

The ad was created Partners, a Lisbon-based advertising agency

There’s a line in the ad which says, “But separated, we are today more united than ever.”

Jack Daniel’s recently uploaded an ad on similar lines. It spoke about how social distancing, a preventive measure to stop Coronavirus’ spread, had, made us more social and brought us closer to each other.

Credits for the Can’t Skip Hope ad:

Executive Creative & Art Director: Ivo Purvis

Copywriter: João Moura

Creative Agency: Partners

Direction and editing - Pedro Jarnac Freitas

Original Music: Steven Gillon

Narrator: James Palmer