Forsman & Bodenfors has turned Häagen-Dazs’s promise that it uses only the best ingredients into a rallying cry for everyone, Don’t Hold Back. It also aligns Häagen-Dazs with current popular thinking – that people should follow their inner voice and live life to the fullest. Clever, yes?

The new campaign is Forsman & Bodenfors’ first work for Häagen-Dazs after winning the global creative account for General Mills’ ice cream brand in a pitch that, besides creativity and strategy, also requested agencies to demonstrate a commitment to gender inclusion. The hero piece of the new concept is a film that celebrates inclusiveness and embodies the encouraging and positive approach of Don’t hold back, underscored by a remake of The Chemical Brothers’ Grammy-winning song, Galvanize.

The campaign, created through a collaboration between the agency’s offices in Stockholm and Shanghai, is launching in more than twenty countries across Europe, Central and South America, Asia, the Middle East and Australia with a wide range of more than 40 films for both TV and digital, in-store activations, tactical social media layers, local PR events, and new product launches.

Instead of taking the regular route of contracting a major celebrity, Häagen-Dazs employed street casting to make the film. The film features Japanese fashion icons Aya and Ami Suzuki, Swedish-Korean actress and director, Nim Kyoung Ran Sundström, and UnFmiFve Dance Company as well as Lavender Hill SoEball Club, both from South Africa. It’s styled by Vogue championed designer, Selam Fessahaye.

The film’s song, Galvanize, originally sampled Moroccan singer, Najat Aatabou’s Hadi Kedba Bayna. This new rendition of the song is the result of pairing the classically trained Cape Town Youth Choir with the gospel group Ukhonukamva Worship Choir.

“Don’t Hold Back is a really important philosophy for us,” stated Michelle Odland, global business director for Häagen-Dazs. “In an increasingly busy world full of pressures and expectations, we spend a lot of our life not being present. Time, genuineness, and real connection have become luxuries, as lives become simultaneously shared, but less open; connected, but lonely. The moments that stand out now are the ones where we let down our guard and let our authentic selves shine through. By saying Don’t Hold Back, we want to encourage people to let go and be truly present in a moment.”