In the spirit of Thanksgiving and the holidays, McKinney has launched Names for Change, a new campaign for Urban Ministries of Durham that asks and important question; if brands are willing to pay millions of dollars for the naming rights to a sports stadium, what can a shelter in Durham raise when it sells naming rights to all of the items in the building?
Visitors to namesforchange.org can claim the naming rights to an item and customize a certificate in their own name or in honor of someone else. From toilets to teddy bears to tomato sauce, it’s all to help more people get from homelessness into homes of their own.
By now you’ve all seen the UN Women campaign that used Google Search’s autocomplete feature to indicate how pervasive discrimination against women is in the world. Actual Google searches for “women should” were auto-completed with “stay at home,” “be slaves,” “be in the kitchen” and “not speak in church.” Searches that began with “women shouldn’t” were auto-completed with “have rights,” “vote,” “work” and “box.”
One woman, Nicole D’Alonzo who runs Tastedaily, decided to turn the tables on that campaign and give it a more positive spin. D’Alonzo re-imagined the ad with her likeness and re-written copy. The ad now begins with “women will” and auto-completes with “empower women,” “take credit for their wins,” “lead more companies” and “be president.”
Sadly, these are not actual Google auto-complete results which, unfortunately, provide an unvarnished window into the pervasiveness of discrimination against women in our world. But D’Alonzo aims to change that and is urging people on Facebook to tag those they feel are doing things to help move women forward. It’s a small step but it’s a step in the right direction.
Think back for a minute to the days when you were in junior or senior high. What would you have thought or said (or what did you actually think or say) if a new girl who was pregnant joined your school? Did you relate to her differently than you would have had she not been pregnant? Did you have a clear understanding of her situation?
The children in this Duval Guillaume video for Plan Belgium undergo a bit of a prank when a “pregnant” girl joins their ranks. The video, highlighting the “unusual sight” of teen pregnancy in Belgium, calls attention to the plight of young women in developing countries where teen pregnancy is more common and the challenges are a bit more serious than undergoing peer pressure-fueled ridicule from a few teenagers.
Here’s a really strange — but intriguingly unique — campaign from Madrid-based Lola/Lowe and Partners for Kiss TV which aims to take on music piracy. Three videos feature songs performed without music by PSY, MIA and LMFAO. The three music videos end with the tagline, “If you take out the music, you take out their meaning.”
Wait, New Zealand has an army? OK, kidding. Of course they do. Even tiny islands in the Southwestern Pacific need defensive forces. And to make sure everyone knows that, Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand is out with a campaign for the New Zealand Defense Force entitled “Purpose Built.”
The creative, which aims to inform the public the armed forces are much more than combat, centers on the notion that joining the army is less about obligation and more about caring and purpose.
Darkly dystopian yet magically hopeful, this CAA Marketing/Moonbot Studious-created three minute animated film, “The Scarecrow,” flips things on its head and tells the story of an out-of-work, disintermediated scarecrow who goes to work for a bunch of crows running a processed foods factory called Crow Foods.
In this bleak, barren new world, our scarecrow gets a peek inside the Crow factory at chickens pumped with hormones and cows kept in boxes. The experience, for both the scarecrow and the viewer, is depressing and hits all too close to home. It’s no secret much of what we eat can barely be called food any longer but Chipotle, which two years ago delighted us with it award-winning “Back to the Start,” aims to change all that.
The film, backed by a haunting Fiona Apple cover of “Pure Imagination” which you will recognize from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, is quite depressing for the first two thirds but then our scarecrow protagonist decides to take matters into his own hands. He heads home after a grueling day at work and decides to cultivate and sell the freshly-grown product from his tiny little farm, apparently the last one standing in this new world order.
Accompanying the film is a game will allows players to “fly through the city of Plenty to transport confined animals to open pastures, fill fields with diverse crops at Scarecrow Farms, and serve wholesome food to the citizens at PlentyFull Plaza, all while avoiding menacing Crowbots.”
It’s truly beautiful work that is, no doubt, destined to win more awards.
World Wildlife Foundation in Canada is out with a john st.-created video, part of the organization’s Sustainable Seafood campaign, that asks the question, “We don’t farm like this. Why do you fish like this?”
In the animated video, we see a catch-all net of sorts collecting a huge pile of animals, trees, earth and whatever else gets caught in the net. It’s meant to be a metaphor for unsustainable fishing practices that, while more efficient, catch much more than they should.
Boston-based Long’s jeweler has launched a new marriage-themed ad campaign targeting the LGBT community. The jeweler is using local couples for the ads. One ad features two women and the headline, “Let’s Both Wear White to the Wedding.” Another ad featurtes two guys and the headline, “Can Both Our Mothers Walk Us Down the Aisle?”
This project — which, according to the press note, aims to raise the IQ of an entire country — envisions the brain as a cabbage. More precisely, a cabbage hacked down in size by a machete so as to represent a malnourished brain that has had its potential reduced by 25%. A brain that, because of the effects of ongoing hunger, disease, and the lack of education has, according to this effort from Dallas-based Firehouse Agency for St. Lucia, been forever stunted.
The goal of the project is to seek volunteers to aid in the effort to limit the factors that inhibit developing minds and, in turn, raise the IQ of the country’s next generation.
A solid and, as of yet, mostly unknown endeavor. Oh and is it just me or does the voiceover sound a whole lot like Ronald Reagan?
Do you have what it takes to create a program that will “improve the lives of the world’s poorest by alleviating extreme poverty, hunger, gender inequality, illiteracy and disease by 2015?” If so, Cannes Chimera, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invite you to read this brief and propose your idea.
The creators of up to 10 of the most exciting ideas will be selected to participate in the program. As well as visiting Seattle to work closely with a group of 2013 Cannes Lions Grand Prix winners, these 10 entrants will receive a trophy at Cannes Lions 2014 and may be awarded up to $1 million to implement their idea.
Agencies and individuals are invited to compete. So get going. Read the brief and solve world hunger. We imagine it will be a whole lot more satisfying than pimping toothpaste of Viagra.
Cleveland-based Marcus Thomas is out with a new campaign for organ donation entity Lifeblanc. Fronting the campaign, which aims to reach 18-25 year olds, are two TV :15s which aim to illustrate just how easy organ donation can be.
Each ad begins with the sound of typing and is accompanied by text. The first one reads, “You could test the water quality of the Congo River for local villagers. But there are bugs in the Congo River. Really. Big. Bugs” A second reads, You could quit your job and volunteer in a third world country. But that requires shots. Lots, and lots of shots.” Each spot ends with “Or you could become an organ, eye and tissue donor at Lifebanc.org.”
Digital banners and printed posters placed on college campuses offer similar choices between difficult and simple means of aiding those in need.
This past Canada Day weekend, john st. teamed up with a new not-for-profit, Stop the Drop, to help raise awareness for the drop in Lake Huron’s water levels and drive government action. The result was a stunt that called attention to the plight of Lake Huron’s lowering water levels by placing hundreds of messages in bottles on the beach giving voice to a lake that can’t ask for help on its own.
The iconic “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” PSA has, 40 years later, been reimagined with a new tagline and a new purpose. The new tagline is “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste but a Wonderful Thing to Invest In.” The new PSAs, created by Y&R which has handled the account for 40 years, center around a stock market-style metaphor urging people to invest in social change.
Economists developed an algorithm to quantify the social return on donating $10 to UNCF, showing the donation’s impact on earnings, crime, poverty and health savings. The new TV, radio, print, outdoor and Web PSAs feature students who have benefited from UNCF and their stories, building on those first introduced in 1972.
A new BetterFutures.org website conveys how a stock for social good works through tools such as an economic calculator. The new creative is the first shift from the 40-year old campaign’s mission of solely sending kids to college, and focuses more on a commitment to social change by investing in a future better for everyone.
After you have watched this prank created by Leo Burnett London for the UK’s Department of Transportation THINK campaign and have regained your senses and maybe your heart is back inside your chest, we can safely report no innocent bystanders were harmed in the administration of this stunt.
After all, there’s only so much scaring the shit out of people you can do before they begin to sue your ass. Hence, those pranked in this stunt are actors.
Still, even to actors, this stunt drives home the point. It ain’t pretty getting into a car accident because you had too much to drink.
Here’s the problem with this don’t text and drive campaign from Belgium-based Happiness Brussels for Parents of Road Victims which employed New York artist Andres Serrano as photographer. The campaign, entitled Don’t Text and Die is, of course, designed to call attention to the dangers of texting while driving. And the campaign’s title harkens the death texting while driving can cause the driver and those around him.
Now we understand this is one of those artsy fartsy approaches to advertising that attempts to lend some cachet to an otherwise mundan cause campaign but if all you are going to talk about in the campaign’s documentary is how the subjects in these photographs look like they are dead while texting, they should probably be texting while they are being photographed.
Yes, we know, we know. It’s a metaphor. And we get that Serrano is big on shooting death. But do you think your average, uncultured 17-year-old is going to make any kind of connection? This is the kind of campaign that is designed to appeal not to the actual target audience but to peers and critics.
A YouTube campaign created by DDB Latina Puerto Rico for at-risk youth program Jovenes de Puerto Rico en Riesgo aims, like other brands have, to illustrate social media “likes” do not solve real world problems. In one video, we see a couple of boys get into an argument over a blocked jump shot. One boy grabs a gun and points it at the other. The viewer is supposed to click a “like” button to stop the shooting. This, of course, does not work and the boy gets shot.
n another video, a girl gets bullied by two school mates and, unless the viewer clicks “like” (which, of course, doesn’t work), the girl will drop out of school. Both videos and with a URL (an unclickable one, no less) that points to the organizations’s website.
The campaign, in general, does a nice job reminding viewers that actual action is usually needed over the simple expression of “yea, I’m for that.”
Three models, Olcay Gulsen, Tess Milne and Anna Nooshin have lent their gams and bootys to Stop Aids Now for a campaign created by Achtung!
On a site which is painfully slow to load, you can admire these three women’s legs from high-heeled feet to mini-skirted ass. It’s all about…ahem…raising awareness of women in Africa affected by HIV. The deal is you stare — because staring is caring — until you are so tantalized that you can’t take it any longer and you whip out your — no, not that — wallet to buy the skirt the three ladies are wearing, proceeds of which go to the cause.
But you really don’t care about that. You just want to buy the skirt, give it to the girl of your dreams, have her model it while you stare at her and, yes, care for yourself.
If you don’t want to buy the skirt, you can just share with your friends on Twitter and Facebook the fact you’re a pervert staring at women’s asses…in order to see more ass. But all you’ll see is more of the skirt. Which, hey, if you don’t have a girl, can’t get one, but, after all that staring, have reached the point where, well, you just need to…ahem…finish and get back to work then by all means, feel free to share.
Publicis Brussels has created an ad for the Belgian suicide prevention line, Centre du Prevention de Suicide, that makes creative use of the pre-roll skip ad feature. The work aims to recruit good listeners for the prevention line.
Those who don’t listen to the woman in the ad and hit “skip ad” are shown a scene that results in suicide. Those who don’t click “skip ad” and listen to the woman’s story get thanked by the woman and are shown the recruitment message.
t’s an interesting approach both for the use of the “skip ad” feature and for its commentary on today’s world where everyone is in a rush and doesn’t care about the well being of others.
Of course, we can’t really conclude that people who don’t skip the ad will be good prevention line listeners or that people who do skip the ad won’t be but we do like the analogy Publicis used.
In a new BBDO New York-created PSA for the It Can Wait campaign, we meet Xzavier, a boy who, while in a crosswalk, was hit by a driver who was texting. His mother explains what happened to her son and wonders whether the text, “Im on my way,” sent by the girl who struck her son was really that important.
The It Can Wait campaign is a partnership between AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile which aims to educate the public on the dangers (and illegality) of texting while driving.
Don’t do it this weekend. Or ever for that matter.
PSA campaigns have traditionally relied upon scare tactics to make their point. But for many young people who feel they are invincible, this approach rarely works. So how do you get young people to listen — and in the case of Don’t Drink and Drive efforts — actually insure people do not drive drunk? You literally stop them. As in, like literally.
And that’s exactly what Publicis Brussels did for Belgium-based Responsible Young Drivers. On the weekend of of its 22nd anniversary at Belgium’s most famous nightclub, Carre, the agency worked with B Park engineers to create a parking lot gate that would only open if a car’s driver passed a breathalizer test.
While this was a one-off event and 90% of club goers were sober enough to leave the parking lot, the organization plans to roll this effort out across other venues in the future. Hmm, pretty soon there will be a healthy business for pop up hotels around nightclubs.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
