In partnership with the Ad Council, a slew of media organizations, social platforms, ad tech companies, agencies and influencers are coming together to slow the spread of COVID-19 via pro bono campaigns and donated ad space. The efforts are being supported by the White House, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Center…
As more and more people stay inside their homes to slow the spread of COVID-19, ViacomCBS is unveiling a PSA campaign that aims to “communicate the importance of social distancing” at such a crucial time. The effort is being led by the company’s portfolio of entertainment and youth brands–which includes MTV, Comedy Central, CMT and…
As the U.S. Census begins its sprawling, once-a-decade effort to count all the people living in America, special focus is being placed on reaching a wide range of immigrant and minority communities. While such emphasis isn’t unique to the 2020 census, what is new is the dark cloud hovering over the issue of legal versus…
Though people with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the world, less than 3% of characters in North American television shows have a disability. (And, of these, 95% are played by able-bodied actors.) To counter this lack of representation, a coalition of U.S. and Canadian organizations spearheaded by the Calgary Society for Persons…
If someone tells you they’re “on” meth, you’d be justified in being concerned. And this week, quite a few people are concerned for South Dakota. The state’s new anti-drug campaign, announced by Gov. Kristi L. Noem on Monday, uses some eyebrow-raising double meaning with its slogan, “Meth. We’re on it.” Created by Minneapolis agency Broadhead…
More than 116,000 families in the Toronto area currently struggle with poverty, which also affects one in seven individuals across Canada, according to the Canadian government. To shed light on these statistics, agency Taxi Toronto and the United Way have launched a campaign that uses augmented reality to imagine how large of a skyscraper the…
Voice-controlled devices could be life-changing resources for people with Down syndrome or other developmental disabilities, but there’s one obvious obstacle that often holds them back: being understood. Agency FCB Canada and the Canadian Down Syndrome Society–who’ve partnered on several innovative projects that help humanize and celebrate people with Down syndrome in recent years–have launched Project…
In the U.K., a woman dies of ovarian cancer every two hours. While that frequency is decidedly alarming, aggressive research and treatment has prevented the rate from becoming much higher. In an ideal world, something as overtly necessary as health research would the beneficiary of ceaseless funding. But in order to ensure that future generations…
No two coming-out experiences will ever be the same, just as no two people who come out are the same. For straight parents, especially those with little experience with the LGBTQ community, that open-ended aspect of a child identifying as gay, bisexual or transsexual can make it feel like there’s no clear playbook for how…
It’s been 17 years since Johnny Cash powerfully reinterpreted Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” into a somber reflection on the pains and regrets that accompany a long life. Now the song, an anthem to self-reproach since its original release in 1995, has been revisited again, changing its meaning altogether into a message of hope. Canada’s SickKids…
A new PSA is using artificial intelligence to challenge people’s perceptions of hunger as a problem faced only by those living on the streets or in distant, underdeveloped countries. Instead, advocates say, hunger afflicts 37 million Americans, in the kinds of families you see around you each day. Relief group Feeding America teamed up with…
Choice is a powerful thing, one that most of us take for granted. And when we choose a recipient for our charitable dollars, we feel a rush of benevolence from the knowledge we’ve helped shape a life. But what if the script were flipped? What if a child living in extreme poverty were empowered to…
There’s a big difference in how it feels to be stoned out of your mind versus just “barely high,” but a new PSA campaign out of Ontario wants to remind cannabis fans that any level of buzz is enough to make you an unsafe driver. Created by McCann Worldgroup Canada for the government of Ontario,…
A road safety ad by AMV BBDO is sparking cries of victim-blaming in the U.K. for warning cyclists to hang back from trucks that are making left turns—the driver’s blind side on that country’s roads.
The idea of Criss Angel and Dee Snider collaborating on anything may repulse some people, but it’s for a good cause. This time, anyway.
Unbeknownst to us, Criss has a cancer charity—Heal Every Life Possible, or HELP. And Dee pitched in to do just that, by recording a maudlin piano ballad version of Twisted Sister’s best song, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
The Aardman studio, known best for creating Wallace & Gromit, made the rollicking cinema commercial below for the NSPCC’s anti-sexual abuse “Pants” campaign in the U.K. The ad is a four-minute music video for a song, produced by Adelphoi Music and voiced by X Factor’s Peter Dickson, urging children to speak up if someone tries to touch them inappropriately.
“To love America is to love all Americans.”
It’s a simple proposition—and an urgent one this Fourth of July, when the U.S. has rarely seemed more divided. And it’s delivered in bracing fashion by John Cena, who muses on the meaning of patriotism, and the things should unite rather than divide us, in this remarkable new interation of R/GA’s “Love Has No Labels” campaign for the Ad Council.
Lori, an abused wife and mom in Michigan, spent two years squirreling away money—hiding bills in a tampon box—until she had the means to escape her violent partner.
Her story is the basis of a new campaign, #FreeToWalk, from the Allstate Foundation and ad agency Leo Burnett, with a stark and chilling video as its centerpiece.
Lena Dunham and the cast of HBO’s Girls just released this sexual assault PSA, which questions the way society treats victims. The 90-second spot urges people to create a “safer, healthier environment for women to come forward” by listening to and supporting victims.
Two years after making one of the most famous PSAs about the Syrian crisis, Save the Children has unleashed a sequel—which follows the girl from the original as she flees the war zone and becomes a refugee.
Lauded for its brutal, cinematic imagery and its creative path to empathy, the original spot, which has 53 million views and counting, imagined if the war in Syria were to happen in London. It used the structure of popular one-second-a-day videos to show an ordinary middle-class British girl’s world falling apart over a year, from birthday to birthday, as her country plunges into war.
The new video, shot in the same style by the same agency (Don’t Panic London), catches up with the same girl—11-year-old Lily—as she flees the U.K. as a refugee. Two years on, things have deteriorated for Lily, just as they have for kids in Syria and for Syrian child refugees.
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