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Shortlist Award
Toothbrush for HERO
PERIOE
South Korea
2025
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Entrant Company
Korea Advertising Academy
Entry Type
Health & Wellness
Program
Clio Health 2025
Advertiser Category
Student
Category
Creative Use of Media
The 'Toothbrush for HERO' campaign transforms an everyday hygiene product into an innovative DNA collection medium, addressing the psychological trauma of Korean War casualties' families. We chose the Mental Health category's Creative Use of Media subcategory because our campaign reimagines the toothbrush—an ordinary object found in every home—as a powerful medium for healing. This approach demonstrates how creative media selection can solve complex psychological and social challenges when conventional methods fail. By repurposing a common household item into a DNA collection tool, we've created an accessible pathway to address deep-rooted trauma. [Cultural background] : In Korea, ancestral reverence and proper burial rituals are essential for psychological well-being. Deeply rooted in Confucian tradition, this cultural practice requires ancestors' remains to be properly identified and honored. The Korean War disrupted this foundation, leaving 98% of recovered remains unidentified. This perpetuates 'Han'—a uniquely Korean concept of collective, unresolved grief that passes through generations. [Creative insight] : Our breakthrough came when recognizing toothbrushes as natural DNA repositories. Rather than creating new media or using traditional clinical collection methods, we leveraged an existing, everyday object's inherent properties to solve a decades-old problem. By partnering with PERIOE, we transformed toothbrushes into both practical DNA collection tools and symbolic objects of healing, demonstrating how creative media selection can address mental health challenges while making participation intuitive and meaningful.
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