Our goal with this video was to create something to inspire and engage AARP’s audience on Facebook with an age-positive message and visuals from Helen Mirren’s AARP The Magazine cover shoot. AARP’s Facebook community regularly faces age discrimination and negative perceptions of aging from the world around them. We wanted our video to help them see themselves in an acclaimed celebrity as she reflected on embracing her age through the years.
While we had created a longer video from Mirren’s AARP The Magazine interview for AARP’s digital channels, we felt that isolating this aging soundbite and incorporating some of her most dynamic b-roll shots would capture social media users in the first few seconds and compel them to react to, comment on or share the video. We also used a “sound-off strategy” by adding burned-in subtitles to the piece, so viewers could enjoy the video even without hearing it.
This video surpassed our expectations and achieved extraordinary audience engagement on Facebook. It has racked up more than 7.3 million views, earned nearly 294,000 reactions and driven 33,000 shares. Our audience connected with the message of viewing age as an asset, sharing their own reactions and experiences in more than 6,300 comments, such as “You are an inspiration Helen! A woman of great elegance. I love watching you! ❤️.” Additionally viewers engaged with each other in the comment threads, such as this post, which sparked 27 encouraging sub-comments: “How I wish Hollywood would learn from Helen Mirren. Part of her charm and beauty comes from her accepting the age she is… Good for her and she is a great role model - for Hollywood and all of us!”
