If selfies are the ultimate expression of digital narcissism, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is doing it all wrong.
Ronaldo’s new smartphone app, CR7Selfie, seems appropriately vapid on first blush—it lets you fake a selfie with the chiseled athlete by dropping in shots of him in various states of attire or undress.
But the app is actually a charity push, with a portion of proceeds from the $1.99 purchase price on iTunes and Google Play going to Save the Children. Future photos and filters will be sold in-app for 99 cents, and an unspecified portion of that revenue will also go to the charity.
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.
A film crew investigates “superhero” sightings in India, Kenya and Mexico, interviewing needy kids in this touching spot for Save the Children.
“They did something magical and the maize grew from the ground,” one child says. “He came and destroyed the mosquitoes,” reports another. “She flies with the clouds and she gives water,” says a third.
These are real kids, not actors, and their performances infuse this minute-long pseudo-documentary with considerable energy, charm and emotional resonance. Of course, the superheroes in question aren’t of the Justice League variety, a point conveyed with great poignancy and perfect pitch by creative agency Don’t Panic and Unit 9 directors Greg Hardes and Jacob Proud.
“The key to this project was the imagination of the kids,” says Proud. “It was important that we only planted the seed of a story in their minds, and then let them run away with that story in the way only a child can. They were writing the script for us—all we had to do was turn the camera on and let their imaginations run wild.”
“Superheroes: Eyewitness Reports” was shot on three continents in roughly a week. “The pure scale of the task was intimidating,” Proud says. “The locations were so photogenic. Our natural instinct was to capture nicely composed, well-lit shots, but we kept having to remind each other that we were playing the role of a run-and-gun documentary crew and it needed to not feel too cinematic.”
The footage is beautifully photographed, with the accents on hope rather than despair. It’s the perfect way to deliver the message that caring is the ultimate “superpower,” so anyone can #BeASuperhero.
Attention, dads. If you take a nap instead of reading with your son, he will grow up to be the kind of illiterate, all-around failure who gets misspelled tattoos about having no “ragrets.”
At least, that’s the moral of a new PSA from charity Save the Children U.K.—done in a similar style (and in fact by the same agency, Don’t Panic) as the group’s brutal March PSA about kids in Syria.
Here, a neglected kid, Jack, is ultimately unable to hold down a job, or a relationship, or simply to function in the most basic ways. It’s the kind of nightmare scenario that should spur any parent with half a brain into carving out some sacred story time with their offspring, stat.
It might seem a little hyperbolic, or like it eventually descends into black comedy. But stick with it to the end to understand why the extreme presentation (and accompanying touch of levity) ends up being appropriate, and makes a weighty topic easier to digest (even if it lacks the storybook-and-celebrity-menagerie quirkiness of one other approach to the genre).
The choice of book, Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, is a pretty excellent fit for the message, subtly reinforcing the importance of literacy in helping a child make sense of a fundamentally social and not always friendly world, while also framing the kid in question as in particular need of attention from his pops.
Hopefully, though, Jack doesn’t grow up to get a tattoo that says “No regrets,” either.
Attractive models are great at being sexy in commercials—until the dialogue on the cue cards starts getting super weird and unsexy.
Have a look at this video without spoilers, then scroll down for more on the campaign.
Spoilers below…
Creative studio and production company Big Block Live created the video as a Mothers' Day campaign for Save the Children, which is on a roll lately with some great viral PSAs. Josh Ruben and Vincent Peone (Josh + Vince) directed the spot, having connected with Save the Children more than a year ago.
"We connected last year when Michael Amaditz from Save the Children saw our talk at SXSW about making funny content," Peone tells AdFreak. "They challenged us to come up with an idea that dealt with the subject matter in an evocative way."
"We essentially said, 'Let's take this a step further and add some organic reactions from our talent,' " Ruben adds. "Viewers respond to visceral material like that, and the turn really hooks you in such a fun, darkly awkward way. Save the Children already knew they wanted to use sexy content to drive attention to the cause, which is wise because, to put it bluntly, even the keyword 'sex' is an instant leg up for views."
So, how awkward did it get on the set?
"It certainly wasn't the most comfortable day on set," says Peone. "We had cast a 'director' character, Aubyn Gwinn, who did a great job at being supportive to our talent, encouraging them to give it their best shot. In the end, we were really happy with the level of commitment the models gave us, despite the ridiculous circumstances. Once the ruse was up and our models learned that they were in a Save the Children commercial, everyone was relieved and happy to have lent their performances to the cause. We were thrilled—we knew this piece could only work with genuine reactions, but we were highly sensitive about not ruining anyone's day in the process."
Gwinn, in fact, has done fashion ads, which was critical. "We made it a priority to run the set like a fashion shoot. It was crucial that it looked and felt legit," says Ruben. "We knew if we said we were directing it, there would be a slight chance we'd get recognized from CollegeHumor."
CREDITS Client: Save The Children Title: "The Most Important 'Sexy' Model Video Ever" Air Date: 5/6/14
Creative Director (Save the Children): Michael Amaditz Manager of Video Production (Save the Children): Suzanne Klaucke
Production Company: Big Block Live Directors: Josh + Vince Managing Director: Kenny Solomon Executive Producer: Mary Crosse Producer: Corwin Carroll Director of Photography: Joe Victorine
The children of Syria don’t have a voice, so rock star physicist Stephen Hawking is lending them his.
Hawking is a man who knows what it's like to live without a literal voice. And in case you missed his op-ed in the Washington Post and elsewhere, he feels passionately that the youth of Syria need people to speak about the injustice they're suffering.
On this, the third anniversary of the conflict, with both sides escalating the violence and targeting civilians, Save the Children U.K. is pushing hard for more international attention. Earlier this month, the group struck publicity gold with its gut-wrenching "Most Shocking Second a Day" from Don’t Panic, which has been viewed more than 27 million times.
Created by agency adam&eveDDB, the new spot below featuring Hawking isn't as visually stunning as the nonprofit's viral hit, but it is conceptually perfect.
Unlike the earlier video, we aren't seeing a fiction. We are seeing the real children of Syria whose lives have been torn apart. As we contemplate their portraits and realize these kids could be any kids from our block, Hawking's unmistakable speech synthesizer gives voice to their words. It is a voice that is no less moving for the lack of inflection. And this time, the call to action is explicit.
"The children of Syria have no voice. That is why I'm giving them mine. What will you give?" he says. We're prompted to enter an SMS code to automatically donate to Save the Children U.K. And we'd better listen. If we don't, says Professor Hawking, our apathy could mean the very downfall of our humanity, for without the universal principle of justice, "before long, human beings will surely cease to exist."
CREDITS Agency: adam&eveDDB Executive Creative Directors: Ben Priest, Ben Tollett, Emer Stamp Copywriter: Michael Burke Art Director: Ben Tollett Media Agency: JAA Media Planner: Nick Smith Production Company: Pulse Director: Matt Hougton Editing: Work Post Editor: Rachel Spann Postproduction: MPC Audio Postproduction: Clearcut Sound
Save the Children est une association humanitaire aidant les enfants dans le monde entier. Pour sensibiliser le public, cette nouvelle vidéo choc « Most Shocking Second a Day » nous montre une réalité que tout le monde ne connait pas. Une vidéo émouvante où la vie d’une petite fille bascule en seulement 1 an.
For PSA campaigns aimed at getting people to help the children of Syria, job one is making the crisis feel immediate rather than remote.
Last month's hidden-camera stunt in Norway, in which a child sat freezing without a coat at a bus stop in winter, did just that. Now, Save the Children has released its own U.K. campaign to make the horror in Syria feel real—the 90-second video below, which does so to devastating effect.
The ad, by creative agency Don't Panic, imagines if what has happened in Syria were to happen in London. Amazingly shot, it uses the structure of the popular one-second-a-day videos to show an ordinary girl's world falling apart over a period of a year (from birthday to birthday)—as her comfortable middle-class existence evaporates and she finds herself a homeless and fatherless refugee amid the horrors of war.
The video coincides with the buildup to the third anniversary of the Syrian crisis, which has left 100,000 people dead and 2 million more as refugees. On-screen text at the end reads: "Just because it isn't happening here doesn't mean it isn't happening."
"It's easy to forget that Syria was a middle income country, where children enjoyed the benefits of education, healthcare and the other basic rights our children take for granted—not to mention Facebook accounts, video games and youth culture," says Jack Lundie, director of brand and communications at Save the Children.
"We hope the video will resonate with the public, particularly those who don't know much about the situation in Syria, and offer a new perspective on the devastating impact this conflict is having on innocent Syrian children."
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