Eyewear brand Transitions has a new campaign commemorating National Indigenous History Month that is also launching an ongoing branded content effort to tap into Canada’s creativity and cultural diversity.
The “Transitions Shines the Spotlight” campaign began with a teaser on March 31 before launching in earnest in June on its owned media platforms including Instagram and YouTube.
The first video features Indigenous fashion brand Ay Lelum, run by sisters Aunalee Boyd-Good and Sophia Seward-Good. Hailing from Nanaimo, B.C. and assistant optometrists by trade, the sisters seek not only to uphold their artistic family’s values of environmental sustainability and social engagement, but also work to make eyecare accessible to the Indigenous community.
In the video, Seward-Good and Boyd-Good are shown in their capacities as assistant optometrists before pivoting to their fashion operation at various locations. The spot combines those two sides of their professional lives by showing how well the glasses pair with Ay Lelum’s clothing because the brand doesn’t just want eyewear to be accessible, but fashionable as well.
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The campaign will run throughout the summer with two more videos continuing to highlight Ay Lelum in July and August. The campaign also includes an offline component in the form of microfibre lens cleaning cloths designed by Joel Good, a visual artist from the same family, that will distributed to eyecare professionals across Canada.
Isabelle Tremblay, business development director for Transitions at parent company Essilor Group, says content that shows how Transitions lenses compliments the clothes and fabric Ay Lelum makes will help increase its own brand understanding while “celebrating a unique heritage, diverse cultures and outstanding contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.“
The campaign is led by the AOR for Transitions Canada, Camden, which created the videos in-house.
John Dutton, the agency’s CCO, says the catalyst for the campaign was Ay Lelum reaching out to Transitions Canada to collaborate on social media and how to tell their story within its overall content marketing strategy.
Despite drawing inspiration from its roots and heritage for its designs, Ay Lelum wants to be seen as a “living” brand and not one that is stuck in the past, according to Dutton.
“They wanted to avoid instrumentalizing the Indigenous angle and so did we,” says Dutton. “The solution was to portray them as inspirational, not only for their involvement with their community, but also for the story of their art and brand.”
