In 2017, Santander launched their Respect Adds Up campaign based on a belief that there is a lack of respect in the world. As a way to demonstrate the brand’s values, In Someone Else’s Shoes was created as a platform of empathy and understanding that ultimately leads to respect. It offered participants a unique opportunity to immerse themselves into a reality many are unaware of, all with the hope of building awareness, changing perceptions and bringing respect to the often overlooked. We chose to shine a light on an overlooked part of society, the working homeless. We wanted to show what it’s like to have a full-time job yet only be able to afford to live in your car.

25% of the homeless population is employed. In Someone Else’s Shoes aims to put people into the shoes of the working homeless to better understand and therefore respect them. Using the latest in volumetric capture, the project pushes the limits of augmented reality, creating the longest narrative-based application to date. Spanning nearly six minutes, the augmented reality film allows viewers to park a full-size car, or in this case the home of our hero Jen, in any space to watch the trials and tribulations of her day-to-day life. And when the film is done, users can opt in to walk and track mileage as Santander donates $10 for every mile walked to help the working homeless get past the high costs of moving back into permanent housing.

Santander US wants to bring respect back to the banking industry. But they also believe the world could use more respect in it. Our research found that a “respect gap” exists in the US. People believe the world needs to become more respectful, yet no one believes they are disrespectful and part of the problem. This led to the creation of a platform of empathy so that people could feel what it’s like to respect someone who is different from them, by standing in someone else’s shoes. With the help of groundbreaking technology, our goal was to make people realize that respect comes from understanding.

A three-day activation on the streets of Boston featured red nurses shoes leading to a mysterious QR code on the ground. The QR code activated a first person POV film kicking off the experience to put you in the point of view and shoes of Jen, a nurse with a good job that can’t afford permanent housing and is forced to live in her car. Then augmented reality placed a life-sized car and life-sized Jen on the QR code spot so that users could walk around, explore and watch a first-of-it’s-kind augmented reality film that married two separate volumetric performances (Jen and the car.) 4 scenes explored Jen’s life from sleeping to working to break-ins and break downs. In the final chapter, Jen turns to the viewer for the first time with object tracking technology to ask the viewer to walk for her and other like her, simply by tracking mileage for the next 3 days. For every mile walked, Santander donated $10 per mile to help get people like Jen back into housing by covering first, last, and security deposit.

Throughout the In Someone Else’s Shoes activation, more than 2,000 people engaged with the immersive experience in Boston, driving more than 4,800 pedometer app downloads, and generating over $200,000 in donations from Santander to Heading Home, a nonprofit organization that has been pioneering programs to end homelessness in Greater Boston for four decades.

Additional successes include:

Among event recap video viewers: +9.6% in Ad Recall, +6.1% in Brand Awareness and +5.5% in Consideration

4,800+ people walked 20K miles during the 3-day walkathon, helping over 200 families get into permanent housing

Drove awareness of this issue to over 5.3MM people