The stated aim of the campaign is to make caring contagious (demonstrate the brand’s social conscience). What the ads really do is make you need the product.

How Unlikely Best Friends does that is with a man in a wheelchair and dog that lost the use of his legs when he was hit by a car.

Unlikely Best Friends is a fascinating ad.

It is part of a Kleenex campaign, Time for a Change, launched in June by new agency VSA Partners Chicago, whose stated mission is to make people seize opportunities to show caring.

The launch ad was a tear jerker about a boy’s first day at school:

Eric Higgs, general manager, Kleenex brand, explained, “Here’s a brand designed to provide care and uplift…I don’t think care is ever going out of style. I think this has the potential to be the spark that makes caring contagious.”

So, does this campaign follow the new era ad purpose of highlighting a brand’s social conscience?

Well, yes.

But in practice the ads, and especially the new one by content studio Vimby, VSA and Facebook’s Creative Shop, 1.) Provoke emotion and 2.) Create an immediate need for the product. You can’t get two more classic purposes than those.

Unlikely Best Friends explores the similarities of spirit between a man in a wheelchair and a dog called Chance that has lost the use of its legs. The minute and half piece of branded content contains every pathos cue ever created, but walks its tightrope with Circe du Soleil skill…

..leading its audience to the heart-wrenching climax statement, “He kind of takes after me, I guess. He just knows we have no restrictions and there isn’t anything we can’t do.”

…At which point, if you don’t have a box of Kleenex handy, you will feel the need to buy one. Kleenex knows this. The ad’s tagline is “Kleenex: Someone Needs One.”

It’s no suprise that the ad was shared 138,830 times during the week beginning July 6.