The Osocio bloggers choose the best campaign every month. At the end of the year we will have twelve great campaigns from which we will choose the Campaign of the Year.
The Campaign of the Month of February is without any doubt the Zero Rupee Notes campaign from 5thpillar. Almost every blogger voted this campaign as favourite.
See the post here.
“One such story was our earlier case about the old lady and her troubles with the Revenue Department official over a land title. Fed up with requests for bribes and equipped with a zero rupee note, the old lady handed the note to the official. He was stunned. Remarkably, the official stood up from his seat, offered her a chair, offered her tea and gave her the title she had been seeking for the last year and a half to obtain without success.”
Indian NGO Fifth Pillar have come up with a new weapon in the fight against corruption – a zero rupee note that can be handed to those demanding a bribe. Genius idea. (NB the organisation’s website is temporarily suspended, perhaps because of all the traffic this idea is generating. But you can search to find lots of inspiring stories about the note.)
Osocio readers know the importance of storytelling in social change strategies. From childhood cancer to human rights accountability, the narrative is one of our most powerful activist tools. At Groundswell we have been thinking a lot about how these stories work, and we’ll soon be publishing a collection of them for cultural activists.
Osocio readers can pre-order the journal here, 20% off, using the code “0soci0” - note the beginning and end zeros, not an uppercase letter O.
Our first edition focuses on crisis folklore and will include offerings from influential authors the world over.
Through the end of the week, Osocio readers can pre-order the journal here, for 20% off! Enter the code below (note the beginning and end zeros, not an uppercase letter O) during your purchase:
0soci0
We are also raising funds from individuals to help us to create a larger, broader and more connected community of actors and participants through a print journal. Donations as small as $1 can be made, and go directly to our printing costs.
This piece of art about the art of writing already got over 250.000 views at YouTube in twelve days. It is a visualization and a excerpt from the novel Going West by Maurice Gee.
“Like no other human activity reading opens up our imagination. It enables us to understand those around us. It allows us to project the future and reach back into the past. Reading can entertain, challenge and educate. We believe that reading can transform people’s lives.”
The ad is from the New Zealand Book Council. Their mission is to inspire more New Zealanders to read more; to promote reading in general, but particularly to represent and promote New Zealand writing and writers – their own artists, stories and points of view.
What a great way to spread the word for a library!
In Kansas City USA Johnson County Library couriers are making their book deliveries between Library locations in some specially decorated, literary-themed trucks: Captain Ahab’s Fine Seafood, Benjamin Button’s Diaper Service, Kafka’s Pest Control, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s Pharmacy with the tag line “Available at Johnson County Library.” The messages on the trucks are part of campaign to promote the library, the many stories that can be found there and to encourage reading, even the classics.
The Ask Yourself campaign from Dropping Knowledge is a series of over 100 digital postcards which promote dialogue on social themes of global significance. Answers can be added as comments by clicking on the postcards and each card can be shared through dragging and dropping into emails. Registered users are encouraged to pose questions as well. See more below.
Q&A at its best: participatory, provocative and pertinent.
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
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’.
It’s a shame I didn’t know about the Global Oneness Project. A great project about sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice.
The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. The people behind the project travel around the globe since 2006 gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world.
Two ads from the Czech Museum of Communism. Communists like Marx and Stalin had some human genes according to these visuals.
The museum focuses on the totalitarian regime from the February coup in 1948 to its rapid collapse in November 1989. The theme of the Museum is “Communism- the Dream, the Reality, and the Nightmare” and visitors will be treated to a fully immersive experience.
Denver was the the center of the world for a few days. As I noticed before it’s remarkable how big the passion for politics grows in this year’s presidential campaign from Barack Obama. The Denver Egotist (attempting to help Denver suck less, daily) published a collection of street art what was seen at the streets of Denver these days. In this post a few examples. Many more at The Denver Egotist.
Dunno if this fits in the Osocio format but I like it. The people of feelthedream.org organise a big global party on Thursday 28th August 2008; the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
If you’re a DJ, club promoter or party thrower, then all they ask of you is to build a special climactic sequence into your mix on the night of the 28th of August or anytime over the following Friday night/weekend, knowing that at the high point the audience will be ready to raise their hands to make the ‘Free At Last’ exclamation. All events will be used to promote Amnesty International.
The most recent Colors magazine, from Benetton, isn’t a conventional one. It is a collection of prayers inspired by the design and meaning of traditional Tibetan flags. The editorial team collected 30 photographs of the Sichuan earthquake and met 30 Tibetan monks around the world. Each monk composed a prayer inspired by one of these photos.
The artwork above:
Name of the monk: Lobsang gendün (Tibetisch Buddhistisches Zentrum Berlin e.V.)
Picture of the earthquake: Xinhua Press/Corbis
Portrait of the monk: artwork: Erik Ravelo (Kiré)/Colors/Fabrica. Photo Dominik Butzmann/laif/Contrasto
It has been some time coming but it is here, a comprehensive exploration into what is ‘Social Design’. This great video comes from the team at the SocialDesignSite.com.
From Adbusters:
“Design is at war with itself. We are taught that design is about finding solutions. But the success of these solutions is judged so narrowly – Did it ooze desire? Did it shift units? – that we find ourselves implicated in problems far greater than the ones we solve. The time has come for a radical shift in priorities. We are now faced with some of the most daunting global challenges in human history. These are real targets, worthy of our problem-solving skills, ripe for our intervention. Yet those who have the vision to rise above national and political boundaries still have no symbol to rally under. We invite you to create a flag – free from language and well-worn clichés – that embodies the idea of global citizenship. A symbol that triggers pride and cohesion, whether worn on a backpack, displayed on a door, or flown on a flagpole. A symbol for anyone to declare membership in a growing and vital human cooperative. We invite you to prove that design has a real role to play in the fate of our world.”
Great campaign from London where streetart and a interactive map are used to encourage Londoners to make more time for reading, and to celebrate London as an international centre for books. Stencil art is used on the streets of London to confrontate public with various book quotes and to people them aware of the dedicated website of the Booktrust: getlondonreading.co.uk.
The website contains a interactive map showing books set in the different neighborhoods.
The campaign was seen on the streets from Tuesday 25 March and ran throughout April. The campain also featured more than 20 library-based author events.
More pictures of the stencil art below and on Flickr.
UK design critic Rick Poynor makes a socially conscious critique of Design Conferences (for Creative Review) this month. This is a very topical critique and a highly recommended read.
Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future.
In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that - to help people see themselves in others - through the power of film.
On May 10, 2008 - Pangea Day - sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro will be linked live to produce a program of films, speakers and music.
We All Walk in Different Shoes is an interesting campaign from fashion house Kenneth Cole, which celebrates 25 years of non-uniform thinkers. “Appearance can be a defining characteristic for us all but it’s the ability to think differently that really makes a difference.”
The Messenger/Receiver House is a project by design students Chris Knox, Colm Keller and Bastian Bischoff, studying on the Master Programme in Design at HDK (The School of Design and Crafts at Göteborg University in Sweden). Conceived to collect and analyse public opinion about homelessness, the graphic and product design students created this eye-catching public exhibit. As MocoLoco reported, the future of the M/R House project looks to involve “smaller versions to be decorated by homeless people and well known creatives to be auctioned off to raise funds for organizations that deal with homelessness.”
The Government of Puducherry has been conducting the International Yoga Festival since 1993. After seeing the response and enthusiasm shown by the participants from all over the world and from India, the Government of Puducherry has decided to conduct the festival regularly every year. This festival generally attracts Yogis and Yoginis around the world. The event consisted of practical Yoga classes and discussions on the various topics of Yoga.
The campaign shown here is from last month and is made by JWT India.
The tv-spot combined with ambient street activity achieved media headlines across local newspapers and resulted in a huge surplus of participants and health tourists from the targetted cities in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Kerala.
In 1997, sustainability design agency Thomas Matthews launched this temporary “No Shop” installation, devised to draw media attention to the launch of International No Shop day in the UK. Despite the launch being over 10 years ago [and only open for three days!] it is still shown around the world as an illustration of the movement against over consumption. The contemporary design treatment and concept will, I believe, allow these images to forever be revisited.
The INDIGO: International Indigenous Design Network is a research initiative, which explores the role of indigenous visual culture within contemporary society and looks at its relationship to National identity. The issues and pressures facing indigenous cultures around the globe are similar. INDIGO’s aim is to encourage and promote constructive exchange between the worlds’ indigenous communities. The objective - to help to elevate the profile of indigenous design by encouraging contemporary interpretation of traditional techniques and themes.
Really beautiful artwork for the Amnesty International Film Festival made by the Amsterdam based design studio Sazza. The artwork as seen on this poster is used for all communication for the film festival.
Each spring the Amnesty International Film Festival takes place in Amsterdam, and this year for the second time in The Hague. Since 1995 this film event is a platform for committed film productions about human rights and human dignity. The festival screens both documentaries and feature films. In discussions and talk shows surrounding the films, the film makers, human rights activists and audience have the opportunity to exchange ideas and views.
Hi! We are Judith and Gertjan, a Dutch couple with an open heart and mind for the people of South Asia. In 2010 we will move with our two kids towards South Asia to work as volunteers. Judith is a nurse with a medical management qualification and will be involved in a medical training program. Gertjan is an entrepeneur and will start an education program and an IT business. Our Christian faith is an important motive for us in doing this kind of work.
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Osocio is dedicated to social advertising and non-profit campaigns. It’s the place where marketing and activism collide. Formerly known as the Houtlust Blog, Osocio is the central online hub for advertisers, ad agencies, grassroots, activists, social entrepreneurs, and good Samaritans from around the globe.
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The Shrine Down the Hall
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Hi! We are Judith and Gertjan, a Dutch couple with an open heart and mind for the people of South Asia. In 2010 we will move with our two kids towards South Asia to work as volunteers. Judith is a nurse with a medical management qualification and will be involved in a medical training program. Gertjan is an entrepeneur and will start an education program and an IT business. Our Christian faith is an important motive for us in doing this kind of work.
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