The path to domestic violence happens one step at a time

Four brilliant ads from New Zealand Christchurch Women’s Refuge.
“The path to domestic violence happens one step at a time.
Many women in violet relationships don’t quite know when they’re in one.”

Disco accidents

This 2008 road safety campaign is from Poland: “Piłeś Nie Jedź” (Drunk? Don’t drive! Start thinking).
The goal of the campaign is to limit the number of disco accidents caused by drunken youngsters who often drive their cars on their way out. It is crucial to raise the awareness of such accident’s consequences. The creation is aimed at showing how irreversible and fatal such consequences may be.

Translated copy of the the first two campaignitems:
“Get used to your new look if you intend to drive after drinking today.”

Thanks to Marcin from the great Polish Social Advertising portal KampanieSpoleczne.

Help us design this billboard

A teaser billboard went up on May 8 strategically located directly on the 2009 AIDS Walk route in Albuquerque, New Mexico USA. It was completely blank, except for the words “Help us” and the web URL designthisbillboard.com.
The AIDS Walk Billboard Project merges two mediums, web and outdoor. It’s meant to be part public art and part public activism.  The site allows visitors to design the actual billboard for the 2009 AIDS Walk using footprints and to submit a story. On June 10, a few days before the Walk, this community-designed billboard will then be posted in the same location.

It is a project from New Mexico Aids Services with the help of agency Esparza Advertising and Clear Channel Outdoor.

Humanitarian message to CEOs

We’re in the middle of the advertising award season and the High Mass at Cannes is nearby, the Cannes Lions. The people from humanitarianlion.com wants a new award, the Humanitarian Lion, an award for social advertising in any form.
Now they ask world’s leading advertisers to convince the Cannes Lions Festival to create this category.

Cause/Affect 2009

cause/affect is a biennial graphic design competition which celebrates the work of designers and organizations who set out to positively impact our society. Produced by AIGA San Francisco, this is a competition for do-gooders who do good work. Send in your entries before June 19, 2009.

The details of the competition are simple: all work entered must promote or support social good. All we ask is that it doesn’t contribute directly to the profit of a commercial organization. And to qualify, work must have been produced between November 1, 2007 and June 19, 2009.

Wake up, Humans!

10th December 1948: 48 nations sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
60 years later: human rights are still flouted. To awake the defender of human rights that is asleep in each and every one of us, Amnesty International Belgium created a series of experiments via hidden cameras, SMS, internet, personal letters, e-mails and posters. Wake up, humans!

Ninjin - The Way Of The Vegetable Assassin

The story of a man with a gun and a mission - to eliminate all instances of unseasonal vegetable consumption.
A production of Do The Green Thing.

One Small Change - For the Health of It

Nice catch from Pulse and Signal’s Andre Blackman about the One Small Change campaign from the Salt Lake Valley Health Department in Utah (USA).

The One Small Change campaign focuses on the simple things you can do to improve your health. Through the use of stickers and other community efforts, they encourage Salt Lake County residents to incorporate one small change into their lifestyle this year.

The “center” of the campaign is the YouTube video, created 100% in-house with a budget of $0.00. They shot the video using a tiny Flip camera and edited it using iMovie.

At Pulse and Signal a interview with this local county health department about the use of social media. If you are a local county health department thinking about taking the plunge into the uses of new media, please pay attention.

Explore the body map safely

Two ads from the Finnish Aids Council showing the body map.
Explore the body safely. Use a condom.

SF QuakeQuiz

Recently launched: QuakeQuizSF, a simple but effective quiz to inform the San Fransisco Bay Area citizens what to do in case of an earthquake.
Six daily life situations pictured with illustrations where users have to decide which action they should take when the emergency happens.
Looks simplistic at first sight, but it gets the key information across in an effective way. When a quake hits, you want to know the first thing you should do in any situation.
The site is created by I shot him because I loved him, damn him. in collaboration with asketic sf.
(Thanks Martina and Nedra)

Straw

With health diseases being one the main causes of death in Portugal, a stealth campaign at several fast-food restaurants was put in action by replacing ordinary straws with special ones.

The replacing straws were clogged, just like arteries, and with people trying to figure out what happened they ended up reading the message along the straw: “This is how your arteries end up with high cholesterol: clogged. Watch your diet. Health Ministry.”

Social offline: I got an envelope

1. Write the following message on the back side of an envelope:
“Dear finder, put something personal inside the envelope and then return it to me. Be as original and artistic as possible and the content of the envelope will be submitted to igotanenvelope.com.”
2. Write your address and put a valid stamp on the envelope.
3. Leave the envelope in a public place and wait for its return.
4. Take a close-up picture of the content, or scan it, and email it at igotanenvelope@gmail.com

See igotanenvelope.com.

A Time Comes: the story of the Kingsnorth Six

A new film by internationally acclaimed director Nick Broomfield has just been launched online, focussing on six Greenpeace volunteers who in 2008 were tried and acquitted for climbing a chimney at Kingsnorth power station in the UK, in protest at the government’s plans to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations.

Produced by Bright Green Pictures, ‘A Time Comes’ reveals how the six were arrested for their action and charged with causing £30,000 worth of criminal damage to the tower because they painted “Gordon” down its side.

In a ground-breaking decision that reverberated around the world, the jury found the activists not guilty because the damage they did to the smokestack was outweighed by the harm done to the planet by emissions from the power station. The New York Times listed the defence as one of the ideas that defined 2008.

The film is available to watch online. Also an audio interview with Nick Broomfield and the film theme song ‘Mayday’ is downloadable. The song is written and performed by Nick Laird-Clowes with help from David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

Against Aids, every minute counts

At a set time, twice a day, the hands of these clock mechanisms come together and align to form a sentence, delivering the following message:
“Every 12 hours in Africa, over 2.000 people die from Aids because they have no access to care” (Toutes les 12 heures en Afrique, plus de 2.000 personnes meurent du Sida, Foute d’accès aux soins).
The association Solidarité Sida (Aids Solidarity) wants to alert Europeans to the necessity of acting quickly against this situation.
The outdoor installation, composed of 321 clock mechanisms, is created by BETC Euro RSCG in association with artist Nadine Grenier.

Your Action has a Reaction

Four ads from Greenpeace made by TBWA\ Vietnam with a call to action: Your Action has a Reaction. Simple, beautiful and effective.
Think about it when you have your mediaset at standby mode, your car running, all lights on or send junk mail.

Would you give minors alcohol?

New campaign from the Wyoming Department of Health (USA) to deter underage drinking in Wyoming. All these pieces were installed in hundreds of liquor stores throughout the state to remind the buyers, the adults, not to buy alcohol for minors.
Buying alcohol for minors is against the law and more important it can serious consequences for those you buy for.

The campaign is part of Where do you draw the line.
“If you knew what was going to happen, would you still give minors alcohol?”

Multiple sclerosis has 1000 faces

This film is a joint project of the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation (MSIF) and the Hertie Foundation launched on the first ever World Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Day, 27 May 2009. It aims to capture the attention of people worldwide, motivate them to learn more about MS and become involved in the global MS movement.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common diseases of the central nervous system. Today more than 2,000,000 people around the world have MS.
MS is the result of damage to myelin - a protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres of the central nervous system. When myelin is damaged, this interferes with messages between the brain and other parts of the body.

World MS Day is being supported by many famous people like Lionel Andrés Messi, Bjørn Dæhlie, Lori Schneider, Milind Soman, Job Cohen, Josep Guardiola and many others.

Lori Schneider, climber with MS (has climbed all of the seven summits including Everest)
“It was an amazing feeling to go step by step by step up that mountain with the World MS Day flag in my pack. Each step was hard and I had to concentrate on every aspect of taking the step, and I had to really convince myself to keep going. It gave me whole new feeling for people with MS who may have a hard time walking across a room. My difficulty on the mountain was short-lived, but I realised that some people with MS experience this level of difficulty with every step they take. I encourage them not to give up hope and to keep following their dreams.”

Sedentary people can’t run away from diseases

Three ads from the Portuguese Ministry of Health (Ministério da Saúde), promoting a healthy lifestyle.
Important these days where many of us have a lifestyle with a lack of physical exercise.
“Sedentary people can’t run away from diseases. Exercise.”

In the eyes of a Somali child

Second part of the campaign made by the Croatian agency Hype for Amnesty International Croatia.
Toy Soldiers is a print campaign which concerns a grim issue of executions being done in Somalia. These horrible acts have become a part of daily life in this war-torn country and Somali children are often witnesses to gruesome murders.
“In the eyes of a Somali child, war is barely a game.”

See the first part from the campaign here.

The Interactive Climate Thermometer

This video has been made by Y&R Interactive Israel & Mizbala for Oxfam GB as part of the YouTube Cannes Young Lions Ad Contest. Very smart use of the media.
See also these videos from Greenpeace, almost the same idea.
More about the contest next week.

Good 50x70 2009 winners

Regular Osocio visitors knows about the Good 50x70 yearly poster contest. It’s already the third edition this year.
The Good 50x70 Jury has finished its deliberations and settled on the 210 best responses. This year the judging was made harder than ever due to the vast number of entries received (4210).
The shortlisted posters are available to see in the Gallery on the Good 50x70 website.

I love this contest especially because of it’s worldwide approach. And every year it is a good momentum to evaluate how we look towards causes and design.
I choose two favourites in each categorie to show here.

Related posts:
- 50x70 (2007)
- Good 50x70 2008 winners

Child labour

GROWING LABOUR / Sameera Kapila / Netherlands Antilles

The best skin treatment doesn’t come in a bottle

Most Australians agree there is little trust and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. That’s why ANTaR launched a new campaign today entitled Respect.
The Respect campaign is a new campaign calling on all Australians to commit to a new partnership between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and non-Indigenous Australians.

The Reconciliation Australia Barometer—a national research study that looks at the relationship between Indigenous and other Australians—showed that nearly 3/4 of Australians surveyed believe that a lack of respect for Indigenous Australians is one of the most important contributing factors to Indigenous disadvantage.

Close the door to deforestation

Espalhe Guerilla Marketing create elevator posters comparing one year statistics about deforestation to celebrate one year of Rede Ecoblogs. The Rede Ecoblogs (Ecoblogs Network, English version) is a blog network that agregate posts about environment and sustainability, sponsored by MAPFRE Insurance Company in Brazil.
Copy readable when the elevator doors open: “A rede Ecoblogs está comemorando um ano. Tempo suficiente para a área de desmatamento na Amazônia aumentar 10.000 km2.”
“The Rede Ecoblogs is celebrating one year. Enough time to increase the Amazon’s deforestation area with 10.000 km2”.

Ecoimagination

This doesn’t really count as social advertising, because it is sponsored by General Electric, which is known for backing the industrialization and commodity culture that has helped get us into our present climate disaster.  In Hijacking Sustainability, fellow MIT Press author Adrian Parr argues that this form of advertising could be called “greenwashing,” because it whitewashes corporate behavior by cloaking it in the signifiers of the sustainability movement.

Nonetheless, this technique of using augmented reality to spread a message could be used by activists and social advertisers for the benefit of the environment, public health and safety, and movements for social justice. 

Queen for a Day

There’s another controversial spokesperson for a social advertising campaign in the United States this month.  Beauty pageant contestant Carrie Prejean, who is currently Miss California but feels that she was slighted for the grander Miss America title because of remarks that she made against same sex marriage, is the new spokesperson for the anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage.

First, Prejean’s faltering answer about “opposite marriage” was compared to Miss South Carolina’s famous gaffe spread by YouTube about world geography in an implicit comparison of the idiocy of beauty queens to the idiocy of anti-gay advocates.  Now Prejean has been embarrassed by the appearance of topless photos that seem to undermine her image of religious conservatism.  Despite seeming to violate her contract for participating in the pageant, Prejean will keep her crown as Miss California and continue with her advocacy work for NOM.

(In my Virtualpolitik blog I’ve written about some of the parodies made of the first National Organization for Marriage ad, “A Gathering Storm,” as has Marc here on Osocio.)

Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

In the United States there has been considerable mockery of the choice of Bristol Palin, the child of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who is also an unwed teenage mother, as the spokesperson for a national abstinence campaign run by the Candie’s Foundation. 

The fact that Palin’s daughter chose not to practice what she is now preaching is seen by many as yet another example of conservative hypocrisy, but social advertisers have often used spokespeople who serve as negative examples.  Perhaps one of the most famous examples is the use of Yul Brynner in an anti-smoking spot that was released after his death in 1985.

The Candie’s Foundation had previously created a number of “Pause Before You Play” public service announcements emphasizing the terrifying transformations that could take place as the result of sexual activity.  In the ad above, a bed transforms into a crib, and in another commercial a car in which a couple is passionately embracing turns into a stroller with a tagline about not expecting this to be one’s “first set of wheels.”

Lessons from the left testicle

“The best campaigns aren’t those made with big bucks but with a great idea!” I said to Ben Peacock after he excused himself saying “Not quite a big bucks TV ad but hopefully interesting and all about a good cause”.

Here it is, Ben’s Charity Bookshop.

The idea is pretty simple. From now until May 20 you can drop in to 374 Crown Street, Surry Hills Australia and check out a shop that sells nothing but a book, Lessons from my Left Testicle. That’s right, all the walls are covered, it’s in the windows, hanging from drip stands and scattered across the hospital bed that’s sitting plum in the middle.

Ben was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2006. Lucky for him, he survived. And vowed never to live an ordinary, everyday life again. One of the thing he did was writing the book Lessons from my Left Testicle.
You can buy the book Ben’s Charity Bookshop until May 20. And of course online.
Profits from the shop go to the Australian Cancer Council.

Some wounds never heal

The first three printads are phase two from the campaign from ASCA (Adults Surviving Child Abuse), the organisation which works to improve the lives of adult survivors of child abuse throughout Australia.
“Some wounds never heal. We can’t change their past. Together we can change their future. Visit asca.org.au."

The first phase of ASCA’s National Advertising Campaign, launched on Feb 9th has had Australians talking about the issues of the legacy of child abuse in an unprecedented way. Reactions have been focussed mainly on the TVC, which was one of 8 components of an integrated campaign across TV, radio, print and online media.

The Cane

Impressing TV spot made for Adam LeAdam, the charity for the elderly in Israel.
The goal is raising public awareness of the shocking fact that every year an increasing number of elderly people commit suicide. The TV spot communicates the disturbing message that these types of suicides are happening unnoticed.
Agency: Shimoni finkelstein Draftfcb Tel Aviv

PerFiducia / Have Faith

In this overheated media 2.0 age full of oneliners and 30 sec messsages it is relief to discover three movie pearls from Italy.
“PerFiducia” (Have Faith) a initiative from bank Intesa Sanpaolo, intent to recount the positive and vital forces that animate our country,” according to the PerFiducia Web site.

“We wanted to do something useful to contrast the negative mood that was growing in people, because apart from the economic crisis there is also a widespread crisis of faith in the future,” said Vittorio Meloni, head of internal relations for Intesa Sanpaolo. This was not the moment for a traditional ad campaign touting a bank’s merits, he said. “It’s enough for us that people ask, ‘Why did the bank do this?’ Because the answer implies that we are more than just a bank.”

The three films, of 10 minutes each, will be screened in movie theatres and on internet on perfiducia.com in Italian and English. They will also be on air on TV with a 3 minutes and 90 seconds version.
The YouTube versions are Italian only, including ‘the making of’.

The less we spend on advertising, the more people we can reach

Local businesses in Portland, Maine USA, helped the Salvation Army Northern New England Division launch an ad campaign that cost absolutely nothing. A big expensive campaign could have gotten their name out there. But at what cost?

Local ad agency The VIA Group helped with a pro bono grassroots ad campaign designed to boost awareness and donations during a typically slow time of year for the charitable organization. Roughly 50 area businesses donated space including the Portland Pie Co., which will have ads stamped on the underside of its pizza boxes, and Novare Res, where messages will be painted on the bar’s mirrors.
More examples from the campaign at the micro site.

Update: Check out an inside view of the creation of VIA’s “This Campaign Cost Nothing” for Salvation Army

Read the Road, Not Your Phone

This ad for the Mercedes Benz Brake Assist System (BAS) could very well double as a PSA for texting while driving.

Just in case you didn’t know it was a problem: a recent study of 21 teens in a driving simulator found that while texting or searching their MP3 music players they changed speed dramatically, wove in an out of their lanes, and, in some cases, ran over virtual pedestrians.

Shouts out to the state of Washington and New Jersey for prohibiting the practice in 2007. Thirty states followed their example; legislation is pending for many of them.

Every time you have unprotected sex, a little doubt is born

To mark the International Aids Day, all radio stations in Israel (20 different competitors) joined broadcasting together, and aired a 1 minute radio spot simultaneously at precisely 07:59, the highest rating time of the day. The simultaneous spot from the Israel Aids Task Force which was based on the insight that “Every time you have unprotected sex, a little doubt is born” asked people to switch radio station and see for themselves that they could not escape the “little” doubt.

The results:
- 1 radio spot, aired 1 day only, reached one third of the country’s population.
- The event made headlines and was covered extensively by all radio stations, but also by TV news broadcasts, internet sites and daily papers
- The number of visitors to the Aids Task Force website increased by 56% (Google Analytics).
- HIV testing increased by 41% making December 2008 the highest HIV test period ever.

The Radio Event, created by Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R Interactive for the Aids Task Force, won a Merit at the 2009 One Show Awards.

Related post from the Israel Aids task force: Aids: Doubt Kills

Indifference is like gyroscopic precession

Ten boomerangs from Greenpeace France visualising what will happen when behaving indifferent.
“In France, we don’t pollute. We use nuclear energy.”

What Goes Around Comes Around

New York based agency Big Ant International have won a Gold Pencil for Design (Public Service Poster) at the One Show Design Awards with their work for Global Coalition for Peace. Four posters were designed to wrap around poles, campaigning for an end to the war in Iraq.
Absolute brilliant use of the media and the message.

“What Goes Around Comes Around. Stop the Iraq War.”