ARCHIVEDermodex Turns Adoption Into a Visual Storytelling Movement
Dermodex's 2018 campaign, The Unphotographed Album, created by BETC São Paulo, reconstructed illustrated images of early childhood moments for children adopted later in life in Brazil, allowing adoptive families to see themselves together in scenes that could never have been photographed — positioning a pharmaceutical brand as a champion of the parent-child bond beyond the newborn stage.
The campaign, published in Brazil in June 2018, centred on three real Brazilian adoptive families: Ester and Moacir, Cacalo and Zé Antônio, and Malu and her parents. Each family had adopted a child who was older at the time of adoption, meaning the early months and years of the child's life — the bath times, the first steps, the nappy changes — existed without photographic record of the new family unit together. BETC São Paulo reconstructed those moments through illustration, producing images that looked and felt like genuine family photographs, complete with the visual texture of memories that had never been captured.
The creative premise connected directly to Dermodex's brand territory. As a specialist in diaper rash treatment and a brand within the Reckitt Benckiser portfolio, according to betc.com, Dermodex's equity is built around early childhood care and the intimacy of parenting. By extending that territory into the emotional experience of late adoption, the campaign argued that the brand belongs to every family's beginning — not only those beginning at birth. In Brazil, where the structural realities of the adoption system create a specific and underrepresented consumer challenge, this was not an abstract proposition. It was a direct, documented social experiment told through a documentary format, reaching families whose parenting story the category had previously ignored.
Brazil's National Justice Council figures, cited in campaign material documented by thecreativesroom.com, revealed that ninety-two percent of children awaiting adoption in Brazil were older than seven years of age. Only nine percent of thirty-seven thousand prospective parents accepted children in that age group, according to the same source. Those two statistics together describe a structural mismatch — a country with tens of thousands of children needing homes and a prospective parent pool oriented almost entirely toward infants.
For Dermodex, a Reckitt Benckiser brand whose core product addresses diaper rash and whose communications had traditionally centred on newborns and infants, this data presented a paradox and an opportunity simultaneously. The brand's conventional consumer — the parent of a very young child — is precisely the demographic least likely to adopt an older child. Yet the emotional territory Dermodex owns, the tenderness and care of early parenthood, is exactly what families who adopt later are seeking to reconstruct and honour. BETC São Paulo's strategic insight was to follow that emotion rather than the product occasion.
In the Brazilian pharmaceutical and baby-care category, competitors such as Bepanthen and Johnson's Baby have historically anchored their communications to biological birth narratives and conventional family imagery. By choosing the unrepresented adoptive family as its protagonist, Dermodex occupied a distinctive position with no direct competitor claiming the same emotional ground. According to Janela Com Br, the campaign was constructed as a genuine social experiment, working with real families rather than actors, which reinforced the documentary authenticity that separates the work from standard cause-marketing executions in Brazil's pharmaceutical sector.
The Unphotographed Album was produced as a direct and film campaign combining illustrated reconstruction with documentary storytelling. The creative approach required two distinct craft disciplines working in tandem: the illustrative recreation of photographic-quality images from moments that were never captured, and the documentary filming of the families' emotional responses upon receiving those reconstructed albums — a response that could not be scripted because it was, by design, genuinely unrehearsed.
The BETC São Paulo team behind the campaign was led by Chief Creative Officer Erh Ray and Executive Creative Director Rodolfo Barreto, with Creative Director Daniel Schiavon overseeing the creative execution, according to betc.com. Copywriters Americo Vizer, Chico Lucas, Fillipe Abreu, and Pedro Rosas contributed to the narrative framework, while Art Directors José Pedro Bortolini, Michel Morem, Gabriel Marcondes, and Savio Hatherly were responsible for the visual language — including the illustration style that made the reconstructed images legible as family memories rather than commercial graphics. Brand and business responsibilities were handled by Daniela Keller and Luana Gregorio, with communications and PR led by Camila Nakagawa, per betc.com.
The decision to use illustration rather than photography or digital compositing was consequential. A photographic reconstruction would have implied documentation of something real; illustration acknowledged the imaginative nature of the exercise while simultaneously giving it warmth and intimacy. The resulting albums read as artefacts of affection rather than clinical reconstructions. That tonal precision — simultaneously honest about the creative act and emotionally generous to the families — is the craft achievement that the campaign's award recognition reflects. Production credits for the film component of The Unphotographed Album beyond the BETC São Paulo team are not fully documented in publicly available sources.
ARCHIVEThe Unphotographed Album received documented recognition across multiple award bodies in 2018. The campaign reached the Cannes Lions Health and Wellness shortlist in 2018, according to thecreativesroom.com, placing it among the most scrutinised pharmaceutical communications of that cycle globally. At the CCSP 2018, Brazil's leading domestic creative awards, the campaign earned a Silver Star in the Promo, Activation and Direct category, a Book Merit in Branded Content, and a Corporate Image shortlist placement, according to thecreativesroom.com. The campaign also reached the Ad Stars 2018 Film shortlist, per the same source.
No independently verified audience reach, media spend, or brand uplift figures for The Unphotographed Album are publicly available at this time. Structural analysis, however, points to several effectiveness indicators. The use of real families rather than actors created conditions for authentic emotional response that editorial and social media amplification tends to reward disproportionately. The campaign's documentary format gave it replay value beyond a conventional pharmaceutical advertisement, and its connection to a verifiable social statistic — the ninety-two percent figure from Brazil's National Justice Council — gave journalists and commentators a factual anchor that sustained coverage, as reported by janela.com.br. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 69 out of 100, reflecting strong creative originality and social relevance within the pharmaceutical category, with room for deeper measurable brand integration. In a category where functional product claims dominate, The Unphotographed Album demonstrated that a diaper rash brand could generate cultural conversation at a national scale in Brazil by leading with humanity rather than efficacy.
The Unphotographed Album is a June 2018 direct and documentary campaign created by BETC São Paulo for Dermodex in Brazil. It reconstructed illustrated childhood images for families who had adopted children late, giving parents a visual record of moments that could never have been photographed together before adoption.
BETC São Paulo created The Unphotographed Album for Dermodex. The team was led by Chief Creative Officer Erh Ray and Executive Creative Director Rodolfo Barreto, with Creative Director Daniel Schiavon overseeing execution, according to betc.com. The campaign was published in Brazil in June 2018 as a direct medium and film work.
The Unphotographed Album reached the Cannes Lions 2018 Health and Wellness shortlist, according to thecreativesroom.com. It did not publicly claim a Lion. The campaign also won a CCSP 2018 Silver Star in Promo, Activation and Direct, plus a Book Merit in Branded Content, making it one of Brazil's more decorated pharmaceutical campaigns that year.
Dermodex chose late adoption because ninety-two percent of children awaiting adoption in Brazil were older than seven, per Brazil's National Justice Council figures cited by thecreativesroom.com. This gave the brand a socially grounded insight connecting its early-childhood emotional territory to an underrepresented family experience, distinguishing it from competitors anchored to conventional birth narratives.
Three real Brazilian adoptive families participated in The Unphotographed Album: Ester and Moacir, Cacalo and Zé Antônio, and Malu and her parents, according to adruby.com. Each family had adopted a child old enough that early shared memories could not have been photographed, making the reconstructed illustrated albums a genuine emotional revelation rather than a scripted event.
The Unphotographed Album by Dermodex holds a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative originality and social relevance within Brazil's pharmaceutical advertising category, recognising the campaign's documentary authenticity and award recognition, while noting scope for deeper measurable integration between the brand proposition and the social experiment mechanic.
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