Parents communicating with their teens is tough enough, but even more so when it comes to mental health. The Ad Council’s “Sound It Out” campaign and Amazon have collaborated to launch a new tool to help parents and caregivers initiate conversations about emotional wellbeing with the young people in their life.
Music can be a powerful way to help foster deep connections, and Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab has collaborated with Amazon Music and Alexa to develop “Sound It Out: When You Can’t Say It, Play It,” an interactive experience is designed to help families break the ice through the power of music.
Offering a digital experience in both English and Spanish, the collaboration invites parents and caregivers to visit Amazon.com/SoundItOut and type in an emotion like “happy,” “angry” or “sad.” The new tool will then leverage the Amazon Music library of over 100 million songs to serve up a list of curated songs that reflect the requested feeling.
Once parents discover the song they want to share with their teen, they can then ask Alexa—using their Echo device or speaking to the free Alexa app—to share the song, which will then be sent to their teen.
To promote the bilingual digital experience, Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab produced “Muchas Flores,” a film directed by duo Novemba. The spot drops viewers into the tension and awkwardness of a mother and daughter’s attempt at connection. By sharing songs like Ambar Lucid’s “A Letter to My Younger Self,” parents can connect with their teens through the art of music and open up avenues to deeper connection.
“We know parents and caregivers everywhere have experienced hitting the ‘I’m fine’ barrier. Through this interactive feature, we can provide them with the tools—like sharing a beautiful song—to break through and normalize checking in on their teen’s emotional well-being,” said Heidi Arthur, chief campaign development officer at the Ad Council in a statement. “We’re proud to once again work with Amazon with a new goal in mind: to leverage their technologies as a bridge for mental health conversations between parents and teens.”
Amazon and Ad Council worked together for the first time in 2022 to launch “Alexa, what is love?” The partnership updated the voice assistant’s answer to the question using voices of everyday people sharing what love means to them and encouraging people to take meaningful actions to foster inclusivity.
“We’re proud to continue working with the Ad Council on campaigns that drive meaningful conversations,” said Alan Moss, vice president of global advertising sales, Amazon in a statement. “The Ad Council’s initiative to create open, accepting, and proactive discussions around mental health resonates with our goals to do better and be better for our customers, employees, and communities.”
The campaign will be amplified by a collective of influential musicians, including Nico Craig, JJ Hairston and Carla Morrison. Craig talks about being personally touched by the power of music: “As openly transgender, I often feel misunderstood. I’ve been told by people that my mother shouldn’t even love me because of my identity. So I put on certain songs that remind me my mom will always love and embrace me no matter the obstacles I endure and bigotry I face.”
