Issue #054

Welcome to your weekly dose of TOO x TOO this week featuring - London’s First LGBT+ care home, brand celebrations of International Women’s Day, Philips and Disney making hospitals less scary for little ones and Unilever tackling the norm 

London’s First LGBT+ Care Home  

This summer, London will open it’s doors to the first LGBT+ retirement community. The space aims to provide a safe welcoming environment for queer people in their later years.  

Located on London’s riverside, the concept is set to provide assisted living alongside a restaurant, bar, floating garden and roof terrace.  

An events programme will be created in line with LGBT+ organisations and Tonic Housing chief executive Anna Kear told the BBC that current residents are already “requesting casino nights and a drag show”.  

More than half (56%) of LGBT+ Londoners aged over 50 expressed a desire for LGBTQ+ specific provisions for their retirement, and 23% want LGBT+ accredited provisions (Tonic Housing 2020). There is an obvious need for safe spaces and like-minded communities for people of all ages, genders and races.  

Brands Celebrate International Women’s Day 

International Women’s Day (8th March) this year focussed on a #ChooseToChallenge theme. A variety of brands celebrated and rallied in different ways. Here we explore some of the best brand examples:   

1. eBay looked to help women enter the traditionally male-dominated sneakerhead space with their ‘Sneakerhead’ campaign. Their collaboration with with Esther Wallace of streetwear brand, Playa Society will include limited-edition merchandise, a rotating curation of hard-to-find sneakers and social media content featuring female sneaker influencers. 
2. Whilst Spanish fashion brand Mango released a capsule collection celebrating IWD with Mexican artist and illustrator Ana Leovy renowned for colourful depictions of sisterhood and nature.  
   
3. Pinterest meanwhile launched their Pinterest Shop a collection that exclusively features female-founded small businesses 
   
4. And finally, & Other Stories encouraged their Instagram followers to respect their heritage by posting their grandmother’s story using the hashtag #MyGrandmaMyIcon 

Unilever Tackles the Norm   

Every one of us is different, so why should we all conform to one title?  

With this in mind, Unilever have this week announced that it will be removing the word normal from its beauty and personal care brands, in ads and on products worldwide. The company also committed to not digitally editing photos to change a person's body shape, size, proportions or skin color.

Personal care products have generally followed tradition in the wording used for their products however words have power, and why exclude people if you don't need to?  

Brands Work to Make Hospitals Less Scary for Little Ones  

Being in hospital and undergoing treatment can be intimidating for anyone, let alone children. To create a better experience for little ones, Philips has combined it’s clinical and technical knowledge with Disney’s storytelling expertise.  

Before entering an MRI scanner, kids can choose from six animated stories that Disney developed specifically for use in hospitals. All were created to be simple, engaging and calming, and feature familiar characters like Ariel and Sebastian and Star Wars' Yoda. 

 Alleviating children's anxiety also improves clinical and operational processes in hospitals — if a child has an easier time in a scanner and is able to lie still, exams won't need to be paused to soothe them and the scanning room can be freed up faster.  
 
This type of concept has also been considered by car brand Hyundai who created a vehicle design specifically to take children to surgery. The car which captures data such as heart and respiratory rate and facial expressions uses machine learning to give an overall assessment of the patient’s mood and sends this evaluation to the relevant medical professionals via an app. 

Next, a friendly on-board cartoon assistant will take the child through a range of wellbeing techniques to suit their mood. These include breathing exercises (a built-in breathing exercise belt measures their effectiveness) and releasing a candy-scented fragrance from an emotion-adaptive dispenser. Other uplifting features allow for blowing bubbles and playing music.