Love Has No Labels Wins Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2016

NEW YORK, Sept. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Love Has No Labels, the diversity and inclusion PSA campaign created by the Ad Council, R/GA, and Mindride, won the 2016 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial at the Creative Arts Emmys held on September 10, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The campaign is supported by an unprecedented group of brand partners including Bank of America, The Coca-Cola Company, Google, PepsiCo, P&G, Unilever, State Farm®, Wells Fargo and others. The Emmy marks the first time that a PSA has won the Outstanding Commercial award and the first time the Ad Council, R/GA, and Mindride have been honored with this award.

"We are thrilled to be recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with this award and want to thank our extraordinary brand and media partners who have helped make the campaign such a success," said Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council. "We are so grateful to everyone who has watched and shared the PSA, and taken our message of love and inclusion to heart."

The winning video from Love Has No Labels, filmed on Valentine's Day in 2015, features real people in diverse relationships whose identities are hidden by an x-ray screen. As they embrace, dance, and kiss, viewers mentally fill in the blanks of what constitutes friendship, romantic love, and family. When the couples are revealed, so too are our individual implicit biases, as each relationship spanned different religions, races, disabilities, and more, demonstrating that "love has no labels." The campaign was developed with support from an advisory board of nonprofit partners, including The Perception Institute, Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League.

"It's satisfying when the work that you believe in so passionately is watched and shared by so many people," said Nick Law, Vice Chairman and Global Chief Creative Officer of R/GA. "But our greatest hope is that this commercial contributes to a more thoughtful and accepting America."

Since the video debuted exclusively on Upworthy, it has been viewed over 160 million times making it the 2^nd most viewed social and community activism video of all time. As a result, there have been over 4 million sessions on lovehasnolabels.com, where visitors are offered a quiz to examine their own biases. Additionally, more adults report discussing discrimination and prejudice and saying that they are regularly accepting and inclusive of others, according to a recent survey commissioned by the Ad Council and conducted by Ipsos, Public Affairs. To date, the campaign has received over $40 million in donated media.

The other Emmy nominees for Outstanding Commercial included Gatorade for "Dear Peyton" by TBWA\Chiat\Day, Snickers for "Marilyn" by BBDO, RPA's animated spot "Paper" for Honda and 72andSunny's "Year In Search 2015" montage for Google.

To coincide with Independence Day in 2016, the Ad Council and R/GA launched "We Are America," an extension of Love Has No Labels, explaining that love for country is love for all the people who make up this country. The PSAs, featuring WWE Superstar John Cena, continue to further the campaign message Since the launch on July 4^th, the online video has been viewed more than 35.6 million times, and since the campaign launch the percentage of adults who agree that they can create a more accepting environment has increased significantly, from 61% to 72%, according to Ad Council research.

To learn more, visit Love Has No Labels' website and join the campaign's social communities on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Ad Council
The Ad Council is a private, non-profit organization with a rich history of marshaling volunteer talent from the advertising and media industries to deliver critical messages to the American public. To learn more about the Ad Council and its campaigns, visit www.adcouncil.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or view our PSAs on YouTube.

R/GA
R/GA, the agency for the Connected Age, develops products, services and communications to grow our clients' brands and businesses. Founded in 1977, the agency has been a pioneer at the intersection of technology, design and marketing with work spanning web, mobile, and social communications, retail and e-commerce, product innovation, brand development and business consulting. R/GA has more than 1,800 employees globally with offices across the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia-Pacific and is part of The Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE:IPG), one of the world's largest advertising and marketing services organizations. For more information on R/GA, please visit us at www.rga.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

SOURCE The Ad Council

Related Links

http://www.adcouncil.org