Lu's idea portfolio​

One day cruising down the Metro in Madrid, in a context where the pandemic was active and the masks were on, I started thinking about all of the Covid-19 ads and how I would raise awareness. I started bouncing off ideas on the top of my head, imagining different scenarios, until I came to the strange, yet simple realization: There is a strong phonetic resemblance between the words patience and patients. Better yet, this was true for the four languages I knew how to speak: English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. 

So that is when it hit me: That would be the idea on which I would base my ad. In the hypothetical scenario that I was hired by the government to promote the use of masks, I would make the slogan be “patience or patients.”

Other than the extreme loss suffered in the pandemic, one of the most frustrating and demotivating consequences of Covid-19 was the seeming stillness of time and progress. Patience, especially in this day in age, is hard to develop. Because when speaking of patience, you are not only asking people to wait but you are asking them to wait without certainty if and when the waiting will stop. Uncertainty is the number one driver of fear, and with a fearsome society, chaos is set to unleash.

That is why in order to motivate citizens, the barriers between the government and the people need to be broken down. Citizens need to feel like they are understood and their time is being valued. They also need to see the other side of the coin: Waiting is difficult, but in the case of the pandemic it can save a life. The final message must be of authority but of empathy and hope. Showing citizens how all of today’s efforts will work to construct the tomorrow they want.