Ecostreet

Everybody

“Everybody is against everybody. Somebody has to be for them”

Bookmarks for children

This ambient media is from Türkiye sokak çocukları vakfı, the Homeless Children Foundation of Turkey and can be seen in Istanbul.
Instead of giving out phone numbers or bank accounts for donation, a useful product was created: a bookmark. It features a child’s hand, gesturing help from others. Agency TBWA/Istanbul & TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris made different bookmarks, related to the book it was placed in. A hitchhiking hand gesture in travel books, a mudra hand gesture in meditation books, a peace hand gesture in war books etc.
The bookmarks were exhibited inside the books and sold near the cashier.

Rebranding peace

This ad appeared in today’s New York Times and International Herald Tribune Editorial pages, and will also show up in the next issue of Foreign Affairs. The ad was made to showcase and explain the name change of the International Peace Institute.
For nearly four decades, the International Peace Academy trained peacekeepers and promoted conflict resolution. But as their agenda evolved to address changing threats, so did their name. The new name: International Peace Institute.

Bob Ross is alive

Yesterday a new Dutch project was launched from the non-profit agency NoBEL. The launch was done officialy by painting a cab with the project url www.nobelematch.nl. The project is called Nobelematch (Noble match), it’s aim is match causes, young creatives and bussinesses. They can find each other on the dedicated website.
Production agency Comrad made the hilrious video with Bob Ross (see above) and advertising agency Pool made the campaign ‘Kleur de wereld’ (Color the world). Young creatives are ask with this campaign to sign in for the project.

The launch of the project in Amsterdam:

Sex rule: Use a condom

For several years the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) makes remarkable Aids prevention campaigns. Typical European with a visual language that is not suitable for all countires in the world.
This years focus is on possible kamasutra situations like holidays and night life. Wherever you go, don’t go without a condom.
Astronaut, Diver, Tarzan or Speleologists, we all must Love Life, Stop Aids.
Most important rules:
- Always go inside with a condom
- No sperm or blood in the mouth

The campaign is very well thought including print ads, video’s, webbanners and the dedicated Love Life, Stop Aids website (available in four languages).

Related BAG post: If the past’s interfering with your relationship

Too many people eat on the streets

Another post about hunger in Israel. Israeli Food Bank wanted to shake people up and face them with a cruel reality they can no longer deny: Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in hunger.
Real food plates are placed in regular steel sewer grates out on main streets and give an exceptional illusion of a kitchen plate dryer, lying on the dirty pavement. The plates don’t just carry food anymore. They also carry a message: Too many people eat on the street. For donation and information go to www.bankmazon.org.

The censorship never gives up

Two ads from Associação Brasileira de imprensa, the Brazilian press organisation.
Copy: “A censura nunca desiste. Ela sempre volta disfarçada. 3 de Maio Dia Mundial da Liberdade de Imprensa.”
“The censorship never gives up. It always return disguised. 3th of May, world day for the freedom of press.”

I have seen more censorship ads from Brazil in the past. What going on? Is censorship a big problem in Brazil?

Clap activated light Box

To mark world deaf awareness day the Rumah Siput Foundation (An NGO from Indonesia that works with hearing impaired) wanted to invite people to a musical and spread the message that the most important thing that deaf children really need is a little encouragement and apprecation.
To make people connect emotionally and demonstrate the power of their appreciation they wanted the idea to revolve around what is missing from the lives of these children - sound. They took a regular light box and made it sound sensitive. The sound of clapping has the power to light up the box and the children’s faces.

Unicef: Wake up, take action

Get out of bed and be a dogooder! Brilliant video from Unicef made by Leo Burnett, Bogotá Colombia.

Stop in the name of Lebanon

This visual is submitted by Bashar Alaeddin, a freelancer photographer and visual-fx artist from Jordan. Bashar got the idea after reading an article about how people are fighting in the name of Lebanon.
Copy: “Stop. Enough shooting fire in the name of Lebanon” (’Lebanon’ is the one that has the splatter on it).

More work from Bashar Alaeddin at his website and on his blog.

Stick with what you got

New phone, new chin, new nose. Why do we always want something better? British environmental community Do The Green Thing ask in this months video to stop upgrading your stuff all the time. We’re all guilty of buying things we crave but don’t really need. Just like the MacBook Air. Do you really need it?

And if you can’t resist the Macbook Air, get the Green Thing edition complete with 1.6Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB memory, 80GB 4200 rpm PTA Hard Drive, 13.3 inch TFT LED widescreen display, external Fujitsi disc drive and eco pack featuring a CO2 widget, Green Thing desktop RSS feed and bicycle delivery, all for a exceptional price of £839. Buy it now.

Related ‘Do The Green Thing’ post: Do as penguins do, use body warmth

60 Unite For Children

After two years of work the project called 60 Unite For Children was launched last October and was organised by APAG for Unicef. The goal is to create a cultural and artistic project and to make audience aware of child fate. It’s a book, a website and several exibitions with work from sixty artists and digital designers from all over the world. The totality of the profit concerning the book’s sell will be given to UNICEF.
In this post seven examples of work from the project.

The work above is from Nuno Baltazar (Vectorbrigade)

Videogames and child obesity

Without starting the everlasting discussion about the bad influence of videogames I can agree with the message from this video.
“Videogames are one of the principal causes of child obesity. Encourage children to play outside” says this video from Hospital San Raffaele.
Playing videogames can be educational and relaxing, just like playing outside. The main task for parents and children is to find the right balance between those two.

Is it a good video I asked my Twitter followers:
@Nedra: I love the premise of that video! Well done, but I wouldn’t blame video games themselves for child obesity. It’s the parent/child.
@steeph: Parents are gone in 20 seconds. The start of the video isn’t inviting for the target audience. (roughly translated from Dutch)

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Unfortunately, you’ve only one head

The used visual in this ad is Ravana, the character with ten heads, is very popular, well known and immortal character in India. It comes from the Hindu mythology epic ‘The Ramayana’. Ten heads of Ravana made him immortal. (Wikipedia)
Great opportunity for Bangalore (India) based agency Bhadra Communications to use this visual to spread awareness about the importance of wearing a helmet when riding a motor bike.
Copy: “Unfortunately, you’ve only one head. Please wear a helmet.”

Hospital De Câncer de Barretos

“If it takes too long to find it, it may be too late”

Really nice ad… and very engaging too.

The relation between domestic violence and cruelty against animals

The abuse and killing of animals is far more prevalent in households where domestic violence also occurs. Perpetrators abuse family pets to intimidate and have more control over their parents.
According to statistics the Australian animal rights association RSPCA figured out, nearly 57% of domestic violence abuse victims delay leaving to seek help, fearing if they do their pets will be harmed or killed.
The RSPCA does more than just rescue kittens. One of their programs aims to break the cycle of violence by teaching children of all ages to learn respect towards animals and to understand that they feel pain just like humans.

This 2008 campaign from RSPCA contains 3 video’s, 4 print ads and a campaign website: The RSPCA needs you.

The silent protest that moved millions

In 2007 7.4 million people live in Israel. One million of them live in hunger. Their voices will never heard.
Two weeks before new years eve a silent protest was made with 10.000 human-like cardboard figures that were placed at main square in Tel Aviv, Rabin Square, the most important protest place in Israel.
The cardboard figures shows the text:
“One million hunger in silence. Donate a meal by SMS or go online at www.latet10.co.il”.

Beijing Olympics: Tell the president to do the right thing

Although this isn’t about a visual campaign it is worth to mention. The American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is doing a email campaign This series of five emails will span April and June, asking people to take action on various petitions and letters during this period leading up to the Olympics.
The logo at the right is part of this campaign.

In the first email which was sent at the beginning of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, AJWS ask the readers to sign an open letter that calls on President Bush not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. AJWS will deliver signatures to the White House on Monday, May 12.
As AJWS says, Jews have a deep understanding of the danger of inaction in the face of genocide. And so Yom HaShoah is also a reminder that there is much more that can be done - especially for the people of Darfur.

China has acted as both an enabler and protector of the government of Sudan. Since 2004, China has supplied 90 percent of all small arms purchased by Sudan - weapons used in the murder and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Darfuri people. And as Sudan’s largest trading partner, China continually thwarts international action to end the violence in Darfur.
AJWS: “The attendance of President Bush at the opening ceremony would implicitly endorse the actions of the government of China.”

Signing the open letter to President Bush can be done here. 

Catch of the day

Guerilla campaign from Surfrider Foundation USA. Trash was collected from various beaches in Northern America, packaged it to look like seafood and displayed it at local farmers’ markets.

Related Surfrider posts:
- The beach doesn’t clean itself
- Behaviour and consequences
- If Moses would live now

Louis Vuitton angry about Darfur campaign

In October last year designer Nadia Plesner started a campaign called Simple Living to raise awareness of the ongoing genocide in Darfur and to raise money for the helping organization Divest for Darfur. The thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designerbags and small ugly dogs appearantly is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves and needs attention.
That is why Nadia choose to mix the cruel reality with showbiz elements. The result was the poster above, also available on a t-shirt.

In February this year, Nadia received a letter from Louis Vuitton’s (French fashion designer) main office in Paris, asking firmly to end the campaign immediately, as they believe one of their products is being portrayed in the art piece:

“Although we applaud your efforts to raise awareness and funds to help Darfur, a most worthy cause, we cannot help noticing that the design of the Simple Living Products includes the reproduction of a bag infringing on Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights, in particular the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore Trademark to which it is confusingly similar. We are surprised of such a promotion of a counterfeit bag.”
“As an artist yourself, we hope that you regognize the need to respect other artists’ rights and Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights which include the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore trademark.”

This is part of the answer from Nadia Plesner:

“However, I must inform You, that the bag in my drawing is inspired by - and refers to - designers bags in general – not a Louis Vuitton bag.
If you take a closer look, you will also notice, that the pattern in my drawing is not the pattern which is used in the design of a Loius Vuitton bag.
The name Louis Vuitton is in no way mentioned or referred to, neither in my drawing, nor in the campaign as such.”

Talks between the laywers of Louis Vuitton and Nadia Plesner will take place at the end of May.

Update: Although I think Nadia is sincere, the design of the handbag looks very similar to a Louis Vuitton design. See this image.

I think the design of the poster is great. It shows the ridiculous gap between rich and poor, first world and third world. Is it smart from from Louis Vuitton to make such a hassle? Is there intellectual property harmed by this campaign? I don’t think so.
Or what one of the commenters asked at Nadia’s website forum: was Andy Warhol sued for his portrayal of the Campbell’s soup cans?
What is your opinion? Please let us know in the comments.

All I Need

After causing a turmoil in the music industry, Radiohead shows their social consciousness on their new music video “All I Need”, with the help of ad agency Colman Rasic Carrasco and MTV Exit Foundation.

The new video is dedicated to fight human trafficking and child slavery, as Thom Yorke explains to Hollywood Reporter:

Blister pack hell

Packing fights, how recognizable. This video was made for Earth Day 2007 and was seen at Rocketboom.
“Look at a product and think about how much of what you are paying for will end up in trash.”

Nothing’s easy when your body turns against you

April is Parkinson’s disease Awareness Month in Canada.
A time for the Parkinson Society Canada to raise awareness and funds to help fight this debilitating disease that affects the lives of more than 100,000 Canadians.

“What would you do if your body turned against you?
If you had Parkinson’s you’d find out.”

“Everything’s harder when your body turns against you”

Beijing Olympics: the risks of peacefull protests

With 100 days to go until the Beijing Olympics, Amnesty International UK launched today (30 April) the first in a series of four hard-hitting animated films. The video’s are part of a dedicated campaign about the Chinese abuse of human rights in relation to the Olympic Games. In this first video the risks are shown of peacefully protesting in China.
Thanks Ali from Free Lantern for sending.

Make a Love Child and Spread it to Beat it

This new campaign from the American Social Health Association (ASHA) shows the perfect use of social media for a awareness campaign. The aim is to highlight the dangers of Chlamydia to young people during April, which is STD Month (sexually transmitted diseases).

The Chlamydia bacteria that affects around 1 in 10 sexually active young people usually does not carry any symptoms, but it can cause serious medical problems such as infertility. To show the dangers, Joao Medeiros and Alex Goulart from agency Duval Guillaume, working with a team of developers led by Razmig Hovaghimian and Larry Gadea, from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Carleton University’s School of Engineering, have devised a Facebook application called MorphMonkey in which users are invited to “make a love child” by morphing pictures of their faces with those of their friends.

But then the humor is gone. If the first ‘parent’ is infected, the second is notified that they have caught the infection from their friend and is prompted to discover more about the disease on the ASHA website. The bacteria has been allowed to spread organically from person-to-person on the social networking site.

WildAid Traps

Copy: “Only could the remaining 300 Asian Black Bears talk, they’d tell us that our consumption is the most dangerous trap.”

Really fresh idea, but I think the copy needs tweaking… Print Ad series made by JWT Taipei for WildAid.

Two Weeks of Fair Trade

This viral made the rounds last week in several websites:

For 15 days, Max Havelaar France intends to create quite a buzz on the subject of fair trade, a type of commerce that empowers producers to earn fair money while respecting the environment, as long as consumers take their share of responsability when shopping. And by the look of more than 80,000 views on DailyMotion, they’re already got a few more people in touch with fair trade.

Cycling, for a better libido

Now you know why I love cycling. Cycling is good for you libido according to Ádám Bodor, the Hungarian cycling deputy from the Ministry of Economics and Transport.
Ádám Bodor: “In Hungary the car is status symbol nr. one, it is my mission to get the people of Hungary on the bike”.

Who knows what is said in this video? Tell it in the comments.

The Shock Doctrine

Alfonso Cuaron din this short film based on Naomi Klein’s book—The Shock Doctrine. This is a reall powerful work, the message is strong and the execution is superb.

You may also visit the site here.

This tall to fight

UNICEF reports that there are well over 250 000 children in armed forces around the world. About 2 million have been killed in the past decade alone.

”Children only have to be this tall to fight
Stop the use of child soldiers. Visit unicef.org”

These Life-size “standees” in the typical style of amusement park height restrictions were placed at the entrances to fun rides in theme parks across South Afrika. Painstakingly pointing the parents to the issue at hand.

Have any books lying around?

This guerilla campaign from last year just won silver at the New York Festivals in the category WorldMedal. The campaign is from the Greenville Literacy Association (GLA), the largest community-based adult literacy program in South Carolina USA.
They needed money for their literacy programs. The bounce agency helped them organize a giant book sale. In order for the sale to work, they needed tons of books donated to their sale so they could in turn sell the books to raise money for their literacy programs. The job was to get as many books donated to GLA as possible.
The campaign title: ‘Have any books lying around?’

Beijing Olympics: How long will they kill our prophets?

This anti China graffiti can be seen on the streets of Bangkok.
“How long will they kill our prophets? While we stand aside and look.”
(via Tibet Will Be Free and Wooster Collective)

Unsubscribe from waterboarding

I wish it wasn’t but this will be a award winner: Amnesty International’s new anti-waterboarding advert found on unsubscribe-me.org, the fight against human rights abuse in the ‘war on terror’.
Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head tilted downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent. (Wikipedia)

Related post: Unsubscribe-me.org

(Thanks Michael and Adfreak)

Regrets of a man

New video from Pablo Olmos Arrayales showing a father and his son speaking about domestic violence. No violence is seen but this minute of images and words explode right into your face. Very well done. (full credits here)

Related posts with work from Pablo Olmos:

- Remember the ones that forget
- El escondite