More women should die of old age

Heartbreaking video from Breast Cancer Research Trust in New Zealand. But in a different way it looks at first sight.
“More women should die of old age. The sooner we get donations, the sooner we’ll find a cure”
Gold at the Cannes Lions this year. 

Every signature helps save our seas

A Silver Lion at Cannes for these three pieces of art from Greenpeace.
“Every signature helps save our seas.”

The Great Schlep

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Ok ok awards can’t feed the hungry but some of the winners at the Cannes Lions are too special not to blog about.
Tonight The Great Schlep campaign from the Jewish Council for Education and Research won a Cyber Lion. Sarah Silverman tells, in this campaign from 2008, the Jewish grandparents to vote for Barack Obama. Old Floridian Jews are the most important demographic in the presidential election. They make up about 5% of the voters in a swing state with 27 electoral college votes.
Read more about the background in this article from the Los Angeles Times.

Osocio: Awards can’t feed the hungry

Stealourideas.com is a new website made by duo Jon & Adam, recently left their respective agencies in New York, who were used to getting ideas stolen - and decided to make it official.

Just for fun I asked them to make a concept for Osocio and they came with these three ads (click images to enlarge).
It plays on a human truth about how a lot of social advertising is done for the wrong reasons (awards where the work doesn’t actually run) and how it needs to make a difference in the real world. Jon & Adam feel this is a needed message that your brand can get behind during this award season, seeing as how your site acts as an in-between for both advertising people and social activism.

“Every year hundreds of PSAs are done for the wrong reasons.
Help us to create social advertising that actually makes a difference.”

Osocio fully agree! As Osocio blogger Armando said last year: “We’re in the business of changing behaviours, not winning awards.”
And don’t forget to see our updates about the Cannes Lions 2009 next week :-)
Thanks Jon & Adam.

Enough about us. Take a look at Stealourideas.com and don’t be shy, ask a concept for yourself, brand or ngo.

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.

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

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

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.”

Change the Web Challenge now open for submissions

Yesterday the Social Actions’ Change Web Challenge started. The challenge is about building innovative tools to help people to find and share opportunities to take action on the websites, blogs, and social networks that we all visit everyday.

The Web Challenge builds on the success of online competitions such as NetSquared’s Mashup Challenge, Advanta’s Ideablob Competition, Ashoka’s Open Sourcing Solutions, The Knight News Challenge, The Case Foundation’s Giving Challenges and The American Express Card Members Competition. 

Participants will build web applications that draw on Social Actions’ open database of 40,000+ actions people can take across a range of issues. Social Actions aggregates opportunities to make a difference from over 30 online platforms, including VolunteerMatch, Kiva.org, DonorsChoose.org, Care2 and Change.org. 

Greenpeace Design Awards 2009

Greenpeace Australia Pacific is hosting a new design award. The aim is to motivate the global creative community to develop visually striking artwork that encourages the public to support Greenpeace and take action on critical environmental issues.

The brief is to design a poster that delivers the message ‘Be a Part of the Action’ – this does not necessarily have to be expressed in words. The poster could bear witness to catastrophic environmental damage and in doing so, cause outrage. Alternatively the poster could actively encourage peaceful protest to expose an environmental problem.
Above all, the poster needs to raise awareness of environmental issues and inspire action.

Registration and submission may be conducted between 1 March 2009 and 15 June 2009.

First World Virgins

This video made by a Humanitarian Lion supporter is a kind of spoof on the Whopper Virgins video from Burger King. The video reminds us that millions of people cannot enjoy the world and asks us to help them by joining the Humanitarian Lion effort.

Read the story about it on the blog from agency Vanksen: Culture-buzz.

The Humanitarian Lion is run by a group that wants the Cannes Lion Festival to include a Humanitarian Lion category. More about it here.

Action Against Hunger: BEASTS

The Spanish nonprofit Accion Contra el Hambre (Action Against Hunger) received an ECHO award for their BEASTS campaign.  E-mailed to nearly 300,000 individuals, the message opened with a simple scene - just one insect, three words and an interactive button inviting users to see the next screen.  Clicking leads the user through series of graphics, where the insect is joined by other vermin, which crawl and creep into a pattern resembling a child’s face.  The words eventually form a sentence: “If your subconscious is able to see humanity where there’s only diseases, poverty and insalubrity we need people like you.”

The Intercontinental Advertising Cup - a global festival embracing local culture

I just returned from Slovenia, where I was judging the Intercontinental Advertising Cup (ICAC). The Cup is a global advertising festival embracing local culture. The Cup was established in 2007 by four regional festivals - AdFest (Asia-Pacific), FIAP (Latin America), Golden Drum (Central & Eastern Europe) and Art Directors Club Europe. The ultimate goal of The Cup is supporting and celebrating local creativity. Local ad makers have more chances to win The Cup than a Cannes Lion or a Clio. All shortlisted entries of the participating regional festivals automatically (and free of charge) qualify for The Cup. During judging, each entry is translated and, if not fully understood, explained by jury members from that region.

The highest number of Cups (4!) went to Nordpol+ from Germany for its poetic tv commercial Power of Wind for Epuron, a German company that develops and finances renewable energy projects.

Mankind Is No Island

Mike from metamike send me this heartbreaking film. It is this years winner at Tropfest NY, world’s largest short film fest.
The 3 ½ minute film, made by Jason van Genderen, was shot entirely on a cellphone, on the streets of NY and Sydney and took home the top $20,000 prize.
Van Genderen uses street signs and billboards to illustrate poverty and homelessness in the mentioned capitals.

Amazing how typography can hit you right in the hearth. I’m a little confused if the used music is the right choice for this film. Is it too much, too sentimentally?

Listen to this audio conversation with Jason van Genderen at ABC Newcastle.

Social ads in New Europe - Golden Drum winners

Last week I was in the Interactive jury of Golden Drum. Golden Drum is the most important advertising festival in New Europe (countries of Central and Eastern Europe). The festival is growing due to the rapidly growing advertising budgets in New Europe. And because agencies from Western Europe start discovering the fact that some categories of Golden Drum are open to the whole world – Interactive, Media, Advertising Campaigns, Design (TV, Print, Outdoor and Radio are reserved for the agencies from the region). In Interactive and Media, we had the record number of entries this year. Quality of the winning work was high. Let’s look at the not-for-profit and social ads that won on Golden Drum.

I’d like to start with the Golden Drum winner in the Interactive competition – the Cello Challenge website created by Scholz & Friends Interactive for Berliner Philharmoniker. The objective of this site was to attract young people to chamber music concerts. Site visitors can play Saint-Saëns by moving a cello bow with their mouse in the rhythm of the music. Try it and I’m sure you’ll want to see how professional musicians manage to play the cello.

Is this modern fundraising?

The Brooke’ ‘Taru’s Heavy Load’ / Whitewater / UK

These five video’s are the nominees for the international Gold Star Award for Excellence in Fundraising DRTV (Direct Response Television). The winner will be announced during the International Fundraising Congress (IFC) in the Netherlands which will be held from 14 to 17 October. The Gold Star Award, sponsored by creative agency WWAV Rapp Collins, is the world’s only international competition for charity and NGO DRTV adverts.
I was disappointed when I saw these video’s. 

Words sometimes really do hurt

These two video’s are the winners in the Nationwide (USA) Cyberbullying PSA Development Contest organised by Sony Creative Software, The Ad Council and the National Crime Prevention Council. The purpose of the cyberbullying PSA contest was to leverage the talents of multimedia creators in a way that contributes to the greater good of the online community.

Above the video from Marvin Jimenez. For his entry, Words Really Do Hurt, Jimenez aimed for a sense of loneliness, and the thought of someone deliberately hurting another through the use of technology in the form of words on a computer screen. “The students involved in the cyberbullying PSA project did an exceptional job,” he said. “This was a great opportunity to expose them to communicating through video to support what educators call ‘differentiated instruction’, working with the medium of video on a very meaningful project.”

We eat the same, we drink the same

This video from Defne (Turk & Greek Friendship Association) won the Kristal Elma Social Award in the category film.
The video shows a little boat and a radio changing music on every wave.
In case you don’t know, Turkey and Greece aren’t the biggest friends on earth.
Voice-over: “We eat the same, we drink the same. The songs that we laugh/cry, are the same. Is it friendship or what?”

More of this campaign here (thanks Firat).

The future of the Ice Bear

Another candidate for the Turkish Kristal Elma Award, the advertising festival. Unfortunately this ad didn’t won a award.
The visual from Greenpeace makes me think about a chocolat icecream. 
Copy: If we keep being insensitive towards global warming, one fourth of world’s living species will go extinct.

Thanks Firat and Irmak Atabek (Ida Pictures) for sending.

He’s just showing Amnesty’s phone number

Bronze Lion Campaign in Cannes in the category Press.
This campaign is from Amnistia Internacional Portugal.
Copy: “He’s done nothing. He’s just showing Amnesty’s phone number.
Dicriminating is not human. Denounce it.”

The fight for human rights after the Olympic Games

Bronze Lion Campaign in Cannes in the category Press.
Very powerful images from Amnesty International which don’t need any explanation.
Curious if this post gets as many comments as this similar campaign from Amnesty International Slovakia.

Children who watch their parents smoke

Silver Lion Campaign in Cannes in the category Press.
Very long copy in these ads from the Friends of Cancer Patients, but a really nice story from a child’s point of view. Click images to read it.
“Children who watch their parents smoke are twice as likely to start smoking”, that’s what these ads are about.

Waiting list

Silver Lion in Cannes in the category Press.
Ad from the Brazilian Santa Casa de São Paulo.
Copy: “If you needed an organ transplant, your name would be here
Be an organ donor
Let your family know”

Organ donors certificate for drivers

Silver Lion in Cannes in the category Direct.
The brief from the Latvia Road Traffic Safety Directorate was to develop a campaign against speeding and agressive driving. Not for people who are exceeding the allowed speed for some 10km/h, but those who are playing hide and seek with the police.
Another awareness campaign for the target audience won’t be succesful. Fast driving is considered to be cool among large groups of the society. Therefore organ donors certificates were issued directly to aggressive drivers during raids by the Latvian road traffic police.

Click image to read the copy of the certificate.

Pollution babes

Bronze Lion in Cannes in the category Design.
Y&R France made this ‘babes’ calender for the Surfrider Foundation. Ordinary beach pictures: babes and pollution. Very subtile but not a calender which you want hanging on the wall in your garage.
The design of the dates, isn’t that like Mendeleev’s Periodic Table?

Surfrider Foundation was created in the USA in 1984 by a group of Californian surfers involved in the protection of the ocean. Soon after Ausralia, Japan and Brasil founded their own chapters. In 1990, three times surfing world champion Tom Curren founded the European branch of the Surfrider Foundation.

Your contribution can end child labour

Gold Lion in Cannes in the category Design.
Child labour is a big problem in India. People in India are averse to contributing for social causes because they feel their contributions won’t make a difference. The objective of this piece from the Care Foundation was to reverse the trend and drive donations towards the child labour cause.
Each individual’s contribution can help alter the current situation of a child; this was the essential message to be communicated in the ambient space.

A life-sized statue of a child, dressed in rags carrying a box above his head was sculpted and placed against a wall backdrop. The box filled with some weights was tied to a rope running over a set of pulleys and attached to a donation box at the other end. The words ‘Your contribution can end child labour’ was painted over it. This installation was placed in several malls with high volume footfalls across the city.

How to carry on the family name

Gold Lion in Cannes in the category Press.
Anti Female Foeticide is a big social problem in India. Every year 1.1 million unborn baby girls die before they are born.This isn’t the first time I see a ad about it, shocking. Even more shocking when reading the text in this ad.
Ad is from AADHAR. Agency: Contract India, Mumbai.

Your head is like a fragile egg

Bronze Lion in Cannes in the category Media.
It is not the first time a egg is used as a metaphor for our head. The Swiss accident insurance fund (Suva) is promoting the use of bicycle helmets. This is not compulsory in Switzerland. The start of the cycling season in spring coincides with Easter. Painted eggs are exchanged at Easter in Switzerland. 200,000 real eggs were used as advertising materials for this campaign.

The reality of the floods

Bronze Lion in Cannes in the category Outdoor.
This outdoor Red Cross campaign from Argentina was made for fundraising after a flood. A home was built inside a lake in downtown Buenos Aires next to the Planetarium.
A sign read: The North of Argentina needs your help.
Over 60.000 calls and a increase in donations were achieved. And most importantly, the citizins became aware of a situation that until then seemed remote.

Greenpeace can make you stagger

Bronze Lion Campaign in Cannes in the category Outdoor.
This is fun. These Large Scale billboard ads shows a shoe with a small stone. Imagine how to walk with this. Greenpeace is a pain in the ehhh ... 

Explore but protect yourself

Bronze Lion in Cannes in the category Outdoor.
Brilliant work, of course from Erik Vervroegen (TBWA\PARIS) for AIDES.

Save a life, text a coffin away

Silver at the Cannes Lions in the category Direct Lions.
Every year, 5 million children die due to malnutrition. However, we don’t hear or read about it because it happens every day. This is a forgotten catastrophe with no news value. The brief the Swedish department of Médecins Sans Frontières ask to agency Saatchi & Saatchi Stockholm: Put malnutrition on the agenda, make people contribute and strengthen the brand of Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden. Since people tend to close their eyes and ears when they see or hear about starving children, we needed something different.

D.O. two simple letters

On 1st January 2007, a press ad triggered such overwhelming public response that it started a movement for political and social change in India - a clarion call for committed Indians to step forward and pick up the challenge of a fresh political leadership.
Over the next few months, that single ad snowballed into a nationwide direct response campaign across press, television, outdoor, the Internet, mobile and street level activation and reality TV.

This, in my opinion heartbreaking, campaign made by JWT Mumbai India won the Grand Prix in the category Direct Lions.

Read on for more campaign material.

Young Lions 2008

Finally this weekend the high mass of the advertising industry has begun. Everybody who takes themselves seriously when speaking about communication is in France right now at the Cannes Lions 2008.
In this post the first winners, Gold, Silver and Bronze in the category Young Lions Print. The Young Lions competition (formerly known as the Young Creatives competition) is open to advertising professionals up to 28 years old. The participating teams, comprising an art director and copywriter, are selected through a pre-selection process in their own country, with the winners attending Cannes.

An art director and a copywriter have only 24 hours to create a print ad. The brief, provided by Amnesty International this year, is disclosed to all competitors. The Print teams then consider the brief overnight and work between 08:00 – 20:00 the following day to create their ad.
The Gold winning team come from the Netherlands: Karian Weijers and Thijs Biersteker from the Willem de Kooning Academy (see above).

Read on for Silver and Bronze.