Dior launches digital ‘Love Chain’ initiative

What do Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lawrence, Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Eva Herzigova, Fedez, Carine Roitfeld and Nicolas Ouchenir all have in common? They’re among the numerous high-profile people in Dior’s online charitable initiative, called the Dior Love Chain.

It comprises a three-minute spot airing on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Sina Weibo, in which each person responds to the question: “And you, what would you do for love?” Individuals — in the real world — are then meant to post their video answers — that can come in any creative form — with the hashtag #diorlovechain. They’re also meant to nominate others in their personal circle to answer the same question.

For each post put online, Dior is donating $1 to the WE Charity (known formerly as Free The Children) — specifically its WE Schools program in Kenya, which aims to give education to young girls there. It’s an initiative backed by Portman.

The idea of the Dior Love Chain, according to Claude Martinez, president and chief executive officer of Parfums Christian Dior, is “to give the floor to people to talk about the universal and timeless theme of love, and what they would do for love.”

The executive told WWD that the goal is “to make a global chain that’s absolutely incredible” — and viral.

Martinez said the celebrities and ambassadors really rose to the challenge. “It’s rather moving,” he said, adding: “What is interesting is to see how we can try to communicate differently, and I think it’s a theme of the future. People often speak of ‘top-down’ communication, which is classical. And here, we have communication that’s more horizontal, more [participatory].

“I think [people] will have 100 times more creativity in their response, and it’s this creativity we are after,” Martinez continued. “It’s in the spirit of the times [to] give people a voice.”

To help back the campaign, three hand-painted wallscapes in the U.S. — in New York’s SoHo, and Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood and Melrose Avenue — have just been put up saying “And You, What Would You Do for Love?” Another is to be unveiled in Brooklyn on Sept. 11.

Also starting in September, some of the Love Chain’s posts will be selected to be shown on Dior.com, and a number are to be chosen to form a traveling exhibition in 2018 that will debut in Shanghai.

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