Last weeks I discussed with friends and allies about the cultural and regional differences in communication, and therefore in cause marketing, several times. It is a very interesting subject. Our Campaign of the Year competition shows how big those differences can be.
As a European I know the sentiment about Americans. Mostly ambivalent. But there’s one thing no one can beat them: storytelling. Americans are the best speakers in the world. Fluent, robust and convincing.
That is what I was thinking about seeing this video from Linda. She made a strong statement about the Susan G. Komen Foundation debacle from last week. Linda is a breast cancer victim and a Komen supporter.
The reason for this video is bizarre but it shows the strength of the story. I already got over 200,000 views on YouTube.
One of the biggest challenges for charities and NGOs is how to use storytelling in their communication strategy. Or a more ethical question: should they do? It is a subject we like to discus in various posts this year.
Posted by Marc | 5-02-2012 13:19 | Category:
Activism
Nice idea for activists and grassroots. Make your presence seen with the location based service from Foursquare.
Occupy Amsterdam used the service to occupy all companies around the hearth of the Amsterdam financial center Damrak.
This nifty tool is easy to use, low budget and perfect for making a cause visible at crowded locations.
It isn’t a new idea. Occupy Wall Street used it across the US. See this map at the Washington Post.
Disclaimer: I combined a few Foursquare screens to make the image above.
Jan. 18, 2012 is the designated SOPA blackout day. In protest prominent websites: Wikipedia, Go Daddy, Reddit and over 10,000 other sites are planning to go dark to contest two bills working through Congress. The bills will go before the US Congress on Jan 24th, where they will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. The bills are supported by Hollywood and the entertainment industry - Silicon Valley, representative of many who want to kill the bill in the House, say they want to protect rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.
The campaign to boycott is mostly crowdsourced in that individuals, groups, organizations and internet business have created their own content to express themselves. Twitter especially has seen large numbers of avatars covered with a black box censored. Youtube, at the time of writing had over 30,000 video results to the SOPA search. Wikipedia is shut down - only with a message requesting Zip codes which directs viewers to contact their local government officials
WANT to PROTEST? If you would like to participate with changing your avatar or shutting down your website for a day here’s a great link http://sopastrike.com/
From Wikipedia:
“Call your elected officials.
Tell them you are their constituent, and you oppose SOPA and PIPA.
Why?
SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.
In a world in which politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money, Wikipedia — and sites like it — cannot survive.
Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they will fatally damage the free and open Internet.”
In the midst of the recent upsurge in violence in Europe against the Roma people, where unprecedented numbers of organised right wing extremists, terrorists, hooligans and, in some cases, even resentful citizens have participated.
The “I’m a Roma Woman Campaign” is fighting back against hate and marginalizations that all Roma suffer with stories. Roma women in Europe face triple bias; marginalized and discriminated because they are women in their communities and because they are Roma and women outside their communities.
The campaign began in 2008 and is a product of collaboration and partnerships between Roma and Non-Roma NGO’s and activists, the video below was released in March 2011 and features the five activist who originally began the initiative
Working with the Roma Media Archive, which is an ongoing participatory media project to which the Roma and non-Roma artists, activist organizations and communities are invited to contribute with various documentary and art materials that reflect the contemporary Roma situation.
The campaign was developed to challenge centuries-old stereotypes about who the Roma are and allow them to take ownership of their image often misunderstood by mainstream media.
It also wanted to tell the REAL Roma story and create the conditions for effective advocacy of issues related to Roma women and to caste a vision of the future for Roma youth which stresses the opportunities offered by social activism to increase self-empowerment and community empowerment.
This wonderful video about how a healthy relationship turns into a successful marriage should inspire anyone who has ever been in love, and anyone who has ever made the decision to publicly celebrate their commitment to it.
See the video after the break. And try not to be moved.
When talking about Hate or Unhate I prefer relations between real people. Those on the front line.
Unhate isn’t about stunning Photoshop work or a green logo from Italy.
These are images from a recent culture jamming action in Rome. The sender is anonymous.
According to the sender the action was done because of the corrupt Italy political landscape. Not against a single political party. It is about all of them.
More than thousand posters where jammed with three different stickers: “Dislike. Share this with a pic”, “Shit This - Follow on Twitter” and “404 Page Not Found - the page hasn’t been digested. Try again!”
Nice animation from Vidar Bakkeli made for ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Banning Nuclear Weapons isn’t the most salient activist movement these days. Remember the 90s.
That is what ICAN tries to change:
“Our aim is to inspire young people to take action and raise awareness on the fact that nuclear weapons do not make us safer because they cannot address the threats that young people and our societies have to face today.”
These are the arguments from ICAN:
- because there are 20.000 nuclear weapons in the world today, and represent a constant threat to humanity;
- because in case of a nuclear attack, borders would not protect us from radiations and climate change;
- because the resources that we invest in nuclear weapons could be reinvested, helping the economy to get back on track;
- because we believe that change does not just happen we, collectively, make it happen!
As a socially conscious designer, I don’t always wait for a client to hire me to create something to support a cause I believe in. Most recently I created this design to support the Occupy Wall Street movement…
Facebook continues its moral crusade against the human nipple. Ukrainian top-free feminists FEMEN (who have faced their share of Facebook bannination) made me aware of the latest administrator crackdown on an art and advocacy project called the Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project (BCABPP).
Calling themselves “An all Breast Cancer Survivor project for awareness, fundraising, inspiration and healing worldwide” they use nude body painting and photography to help survivors express how they feel about what the disease has done to their bodies. But while Facebook generally gives an exception to nudity (which in America means exposed female nipples, bums and/or genitals) in paintings and other “art”, it does not except non-sexual nudity that has been painted.
“It has come to our attention,” states the petition against the social media network, “that Facebook is now censoring images being posted for this project. I have used social media long enough to know that they censor who and want they want. I see pornographic material on there daily. I see women, men, children using their bodies to elicit business in their avatar usage. What I want to know is HOW can they censor a project that uses the human canvas and creates ART - when they allow nude paintings and other photos to be shown? I am positive that our children see more T & A while surfing through Facebook (and other online venues), as well as just turning on the television, opening a magazine or going to a beach!”
Facebook is, as always, within its rights to censor based on its user Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The problem artists and activists are having is that it simply prohibits “nudity” without stating details or exceptions and that enforcement is based on user reporting. So it is basically in the hands of the most prudish visitor to decide what is “pornography”, and Facebook admins usually follow a guilty-until-proven-innocent deletion policy. In the past, artists have been reinstated after causing PR headaches for the network. But they continue to pander to a very Middle American standard of decency.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC, sexual violence is a community-wide problem. Rape, in the DRC has been used as a weapon of war and sadly continues to increase even after. According to the peacebuilding NGO Search for Common Ground or SFCG, it is estimated that there…
In the movie Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack goes “back to the future” and discovers that his friend Lou has become incredibly wealthy due to a little search-engine-that-could that he aptly named “Lougle.” It’s a fun example of how an individual’s name can become a familiar household term…
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