In the Moment

Find more videos like this on In The Moment

West Hollywood’s WeHoLife.org is sponsoring a new online soap opera about HIV prevention, which is aimed at young men who may assume that the AIDS epidemic is over.  As The Los Angeles Times explains in ”Gay online soap opera has a serious message,” “In the Moment” uses its “racy, unvarnished portrait of gay L.A.” to offer an alternative to traditional community outreach and social marketing efforts.  The second episode is above, and the first episode is here.  Episodes also frequently deal with the challenges to traditional relationships of an Internet culture in which people meet up virtually or have minimal face-to-face contact.  Series creators are also using the more flexible social networking tool Ning to create what they hope will be an active online community around the show, which is already agitating for webisodes in Spanish.  This video explains more about how the show was created on a minimal budget.

Lessons in leadership

This stunning artwork and flash animation is made to introduce the world to Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children. Twelve lessons in leadership tells her story of making a ngo succesful.
Shocked by the aftermath of World War 1 and the Russian Revolution, Eglantyne and her sister Dorothy Buxton were determined to secure improvements to children’s lives. Their goal was to create a powerful international organisation, which would extend its ramifications to the remotest corner of the globe. This was soon achieved – and Save the Children continues to build on this success.

Positive or negative, 1 in 4 don’t know

This friday, June 27, is National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) in the USA. For this day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made this campaign.
CDC estimates that 180,000 to 280,000 people nationwide are HIV-positive but are unaware of their status. HIV counseling and testing enables people with HIV to take steps to protect their own health and that of their partners, and helps people who test negative get the information they need to stay uninfected.

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”

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.

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.

Greenpeace Insects

Do you know what you eat? The DNA of genetically modified plants may contain the genes of insects, animals or even viruses. These products may potentially cause harm to your health. Look for GMD free sign on the package.

Don’t Wait For the Rain

Since 1996 KickStart has been the leader in micro-irrigation technologies through the development and sales of its popularly known series of manually operated “MoneyMaker” pumps. Watch this video by Maasai rap artist Mr. Ebbo to learn more about this life-changing technology.

KickStart is a non-profit organization that develops and markets new agricultural technologies in Africa. These low-cost technologies are bought by local entrepreneurs and used to establish highly profitable new small businesses. They create new jobs and wealth, enabling the poor to climb out of poverty forever. The Lemelson Foundation has provided funding for KickStart initiatives.

Pos or Not

MTV’s Pos or Not? uses a hot-or-not style interface to encourage players to guess if the person in the photo is HIV positive or not. Unlike overly easy online games, such as ID the Creep about sexual predators, it isn’t simple to figure out the underlying algorithm of posornot.org, which makes the experience of this particular guessing game unsettling. Gay people are often negative, and straight people are often positive, and all of the portraits come with intimate accounts about either how the person became infected or how the person became an activist despite being negative because of contact with a victim of the disease. According to the “about" page, this Kaiser foundation-sponsored online activity is specifically designed to be “viral,” and players are frequently prompted with a message about “Send Game to A Friend.”

You can be hero after you die

“You can be hero after you die.
Make the organ donor pledge.”
Cynical copy in this ad from the France organ donation organisation France Adot. As in many countries there is a lack of organ donors in France.

After the break two video’s from France Adot from last year.

No woman wants to look like a man

This new campaign from Drug and Alcohol Service for London (DASL), the leading substance misuse charity in London, targets female drinkers. For women alcohol addiction is accompanied by hair loss, wrinkles and obesity, plus the other problems like breast cancer, early menopause and memory loss.
The ad is spotted at several outdoor advertising sites in the London Underground.  It will also appear in Marie Claire’s July issue.

The campaign is also guided by a digital application that demonstrates the physical effects of drinking too much at the social network bebo. Visitors can submit their own photo and enter their weekly intake of alcohol. Their face is then altered and the result is a shocking insight into what they could look like in years to come. 

Thanks for sending Alef.

Help us prevent strokes

PSA from Sweden from STROKE-Riksförbundet made to create awareness of the severe consequences of stroke and raise funds for stroke research.
“Stroke affect different brain functions - memory for example.”
STROKE-Riksförbundet
Help us prevent strokes - visit www.strokeforbundet.se."

Xray Adbins

A new way of using AdBins. Saatchi & Saatchi London made this for Quit, the stop smoking charity. It shows a set of lungs, transparent in the middle so you can see all the discarded cigarette ends inside the bin.

Send Aids to 3669

This campaign from Terres des Hommes was running last couple of weeks in the Netherlands. In a aggressive hyperventilating MTV style Terres des Hommes ask viewers to send a sms in order to help Aids/HIV orphans in East Africa.
“Adopt the abandoned Aids Orphan. SMS Aids to 3669.”

A SMS to Terres des Hommes costs €1,50, €0,99 of it is for the Aids orphan project. After donating a animated wallpaper was sent in return showing a thank-you-kiss from the Aids orphan.
With this confrontating campaign Terres des Hommes tries to reach the young audience in the age of 15 - 25. It looks funny at first sight but this ringtone look-a-like psa isn’t after all.

Another part of the campaign is the dedicated page on the Dutch social network Hyves: mercylife.hyves.nl.

Thanks Antoinette from Leylines for sending.

Smoking kills more

Smoking kills more people than Adolf Hitler and Bin Laden ever did. That is the key message in this anti-smoking campaign from Brazil: Cigarro Mata Mais (Smoking kills more). Cigarettes are used as the medium to create both non-moving and moving images.
The campaign not only contains 2 print ads and a video, the ‘art against smoking’ was also done live last months in São Paulo Brazil. See the video below.
Cigarro Mata Mais is funded by Unimed, the Brazilian insurance company.
More images from the live action at Flickr.

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

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.

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.

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”.

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”

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.

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.

Racism makes me sick

This new anti-racism campaign from Australia, which was launched yesterday, isn’t the common fight against racism. It is about the threat to public health racism can be. A range of health problems including high blood pressure and heart disease, depression, anxiety, low birth rate and premature birth can all be caused directly by people’s personal experiences of racism.
This campaign is calling on all Australians to take action against racism and tackle the Indigenous health crisis. It is a initiative of ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) in collaboration with The Body Shop.

Deliver the Net

Unfortunately, Deliver the Net is a much less engaging computer game that does little to publicize the coming of World Malaria Day or raise money for much-needed malaria nets from donors in developed countries.  Games offer ways to model complicated scenarios, get people to think critically about rules and value systems, and personally situate themselves in simulated problem-solving.  This online game in which you drive around on a motorbike delivering malaria nets to cardboard-cutout-style people with no other interaction does nothing to encourage social consciousness through game play.

G.I. Jonny

Of course you have been to the Webby Awards website to vote for Skull-A-Day. But there is more to explore. There is a is dedicated category in the Interactive Advertising section: Rich Media Single: Non-Profit/Educational with five great examples of inteactive work from last year. I will post them all here on Osocio.

The first one is from the UK called G.I. Jonny. G.I. Jonny is a viral information campaign produced by the BBC to raise awareness about HIV in the UK.
The campaign was running from 1 October until World AIDS Day on 1 December 2007 but it is still online.
The aim is to empower teenagers and young people with the facts about HIV and encourage them to protect each other from infection by sharing this information.

Smoker’s Survey

“Smoking does more than what meets your eyes. Quit now.” A really effective and creative ad… I think it has in it a potential to engage the smokers right away.

Cape Argus Aids stats

To commemorate World AIDS day on December 1st the South African newspaper Cape Argus used their page numbers on the top of every page of the newspaper to educate the public on statistics relating to the AIDS pandemic in South Africa. All the statistics were collected from UNICEF and the South African Department of Health.

Bamboo in a tent

Dalbir Singh from Ad of Da Month pointed me to these ‘safe sex’ ads from India, targetting some Indian Villages where Hollywood B-Grade soft porn movies may not be not so uncommon. I’m not sure if these are real or fake, credits unknown.

Copy of the ad above:
Bamboo in a tent
Hey dude, wear a condom, or neighter you will have the bamboo, nor will you be able to play the flute.

We all have the same colour blood in our hearts

This awareness campaign for the International Red Cross won bronze at the ACT competition last year.
The idea behind the artwork is that everybody have the right to be treated as a normal human being. A healthy life is very important, compassion and tolerance is part of it.
“Every conflict around the globe, whether it’s between countries or cousins, begins when people disregard this (compassion) basic human emotion.
Compassion helps us find common ground and overlook our differences by discovering that we all have the same colour blood in our hearts.”

The artwork is made by Pier Madonia (Art Director) together with Stuart Macmillan (Copy) and Roger Stayte (Photography).
Thanks Johan for the tip.

Provide him water, make him improve immediately

A child’s well-being is highly dependent on both the quality and the availability of water. But in Afro-Asian areas, the solution is not put enough attention. The World Health Organisation (WHO) drinking water project is encouraging people to give out financial help to these areas.
The strategy was doing campaign in Beijing and give out the glasses. Print a skinny child image on the glass, as the water filed the glass, by the effect of refraction, the skinny child began getting “fat” visually shows the theme of “Having water to drink, he will improve” therefore encourage people to donate money.
People’s attention were drawed to the drinking water issue and within one day, among all the campaign site all toegether donated RMB 153200,-
Copy on the glass: “Provide him water, make him improve immediately. Please donate WHO drinking water project.”

Are you close to boiling point?

A famous Dutch writer said last week “we are living in a over irritated world”. I admit, looking around at most blogs shows the dominance of the big mouth. Superiority and anger seems to be the keywords.
The British Mental Health Foundation ask in this years campaign how close you are to the boiling point. Most of us deal with anger in a healthy way. But for some of us anger can sometimes become a problem. Even if you don’t always express anger, it doesn’t mean you don’t feel it.
Problem anger has been linked to a range of physical, mental health and social problems. 

Telugu Condom Song

This is an entertaining and educational video from 2007 in Telugu (Wikipedia) on Condom usage, to prevent from sexually transmitted infections and HIV, from Nrityanjali Academy, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Nrityanjali Academy is a voluntary, non-political, not-for-profit, secular development organization. Nrityanjali is collaborating with Corporates / Educational Institutions in Hyderabad / Secunderabad in it’s fight against HIV/AIDS. See for example this page with profiles of HIV Positive Children.