The past few years in Hong Kong have been extremely straining for family relationships. With inter-generational disputes during the 2019 protests and subsequent lockdowns in tiny Hong Kong homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, tension between parents and youth have only kept rising. Although family counselling services and workshops are provided by numerous organisations, general participation has been low. To bring general awareness to this issue and motivate families to seek counselling and parenting education, Sony decided to conduct a social experiment in partnership with Character City, an organisation dedicated to parenting education.

Our insight: Family love endures.

Although there is so much tension built up between parents and youth in Hong Kong, it did not mean that the love between them had gone. We believed that the innate love between parent and child can endure no matter how external circumstances change. They only needed to see that the love had not gone.

Our idea: See the Love – The love behind a hug made visible

Through a simple hug, we wanted to allow these pairs of parents and youth to visibly see the love they innately shared.

The experience was targeted towards Hong Kong families with youth. With inter-generational differences arising between the parents’ generation and the youth generation during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and subsequent lockdowns in Hong Kong’s infamous tiny homes, relationships were on a worsening trend between parents and youth. This social issue presented a ripe opportunity for Sony to create the greatest emotional impact and word-of-mouth.

We invited different pairs of parent and youth to hug each other. Using Sony cameras and screens, we then captured their heartfelt expression during the hug and showed it to them in real time as they hugged each other – creating a unique experience that allowed them to visibly see the love that still exists between each other through a hug, encouraging them to take the first step towards better their relationship.

The live experience was held on a single day on December 4th 2021, and was subsequently adapted into an online video that ran various social media platforms from December 20th 2021 to January 3rd 2022.

With our experience and subsequent content adaptations, we drove a 23-fold increase in attendance for Character City’s family communications workshops.