Osocio Campaign of the Year 2011

A record number of blogposts. A shortlist of 80. A team of hand-picked jurors from around the world. And just three winners. 
The wait is over for Osocio’s campaign of the year 2011.

The winning campaign:

The Return of Ben Ali

An entry that comes, not from the West, not from a mainstream cause. But from the Arab Spring, the spontaneous grassroots movement that 2011 will always be remembered for.
We loved it because it shows that even in the midst of chaos and conflict, a great idea can still inspire action.

We also introduced a new category to highlight technology ideas that change lives. The winning Innovation:

A Litre of Light

A simple, cheap, spreadable innovation that will bring free light to the homes of people in Manila and change lives forever. With a lovely film to show it off.

And finally, this year we had to introduce a new category for social movements. Because change isn’t always driven by NGO’s, but can still rely on a powerful communications idea. The winning Social Movement:

Occupy

Our jurors picked ‘Occupy’ as a powerful and unifying rallying cry that brought the politicised, the dispossessed and the just plain angry together in cities all over the world.

Thank you to all our readers, all our bloggers, all our commenters and jurors – and most importantly to all those using their talent and creativity to make the world turn in a more positive direction.

See the three winners after the break.

Nominees for the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2011 announced

What a year for social causes and the communications behind them. A year that no-one could have predicted. A year when change was driven more from the grassroots than by experts at nonprofits. And yet, where communications platforms and ideas still had a vital role to play.

After all, the Arab Spring and occupy movements needed symbols and rallying cries – a simple communication idea like ‘we are the 99%’ had the power to speak a simple truth to millions and unite a movement.

All of this has meant a difficult process for the nominations to the Osocio campaign of the year for 2011. We decided to introduce two new categories, to reward social movements and technological innovations, as well as advertising and marketing ideas.

Another big shift was the move from West to East. This year we saw beautifully conceived and delivered work coming from countries like Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Singapore.

So. These, friends, are our particular favourite campaigns from over 600 amazing blogposts on Osocio in 2011. Stay tuned for the winners.

Jury:
All Osocio bloggers are members of the jury. And we are proud to announce these 15 external jury members:

• David Berman, Do Good Design author/strategic thinker, UN Special Advisor web accessibility.
• Guillermo Caro, is an international consultant. He was Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather, founder of Advertisers Without Borders and Ogilvy Prosocial Latin American. He is expert in non-profit advertising, marketing for social causes and Corporate Social Responsibility.
• Åsk Dabitch, the force behind Adland. Art Director geek.
• Sophie Guérinet, Event & Collection Manager at ACT Responsible.
• Jean julien Guyot, Trust Manager at agency SID LEE and blogfriend for a long time at IPUB.
• Paul de Gregorio, Head of Mobile at UK fundraising agency Open Fundraising.  His blog.
• Constantin Nimigean, Owner at Oitzarisme.ro, an inspirational website about contemporary photography and founder of Love Issue online magazine.
• Claire Kerr, Director of Digital Philanthropy, Artez Interactive. Blogger at Nonprofity.com.
• Steve Hall, Advertising Guy and Publisher of Adrants.
• Gustavo Machado, Designer+Educator+Social Entrepreneur from São Paulo, Brazil. Editor at DesignEducation.ca - Sharing our Future
• Joe La Pompe, great lover of creative advertising and restless “copycat hunter” since 1999 on his blog joelapompe.net.
• Nancy E. Schwartz, Publisher of the Getting Attention.org blog and e-update, expert in nonprofit marketing.
• Reinier Spruit, Head of Fundraising at Greenpeace International and founder/blogger at 101fundraising, crowdblog on fundraising.
• Nedra Kline Weinreich, Founder of Weinreich Communications, expert in the field of Social Marketing.
• Martina Zavagno, Interactive marketer working for a premium sports brand. And famous advertising blogger at Adverblog.

Go directly to the category:
- Campaign of the Year
- Innovation of the Year
- Social Movement of the Year

Your favourite Osocio posts of 2011

What’s interesting about blogging at Osocio is that we often cover campaigns that mainstream marketing blogs do not. A look at our 10 most-visited posts of 2011 shows the diversity of our mandate, but it also proves the old adage that sex sells…

1. The best billboard in the world

Our #1 post of 2011, however, had nothing to do with sex, shock, or even a brand. It’s this anti-billboard that was erected at a Canada-US border crossing near Blaine, Washington:

“Non-Sign II” is a sculpture by Seattle’s Lead Pencil Studio, commissioned by the United States government. You can read more about it, and see more views, at the original post from last February, ”The best billboard in the world”.

2. Slut Walk

Our second most-read post was about a small protest planned in Toronto, Canada, after a member of the local police force made a fatefully inappropriate statement about sexual assault, “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

The protest, called Slut Walk, really hit a nerve with women worldwide. As a third-wave feminist movement, the Toronto street protest was soon emulated in other North American cities. It spread rapidly through the Western and English-speaking worlds, and eventually beyond. Wherever it went, Slut Walk was locally organized and independent. But that didn’t stop it from being accused, in the United States and Canada, of being a “white” movement.

We covered the movement several times, as it was one of the major activism stories of 2011. But it’s always interesting to go back and read that first Slut Walk post with the awareness of what would come.

3. My big book of beautiful breasts

The third most-read post of the year was the type that usually attracts lots of views: breast nudity in the service of breast cancer activism. Perhaps the headline, ”My big book of beautiful breasts,” attracted more voyeurs than activists.

But the book itself was a serious effort by Australian-American photographer Peter Bruce, for a serious cause.

See the other seven top posts, as well as some interesting year-end stats, after the break.

The Power of Photography: Love Issue - Distance

I’m doing Osocio for 6 years now and I have seen a lot of creative work in our niche. The thing which intrigue me the most is the power of visual communication. Especially a message in one single image. It seems easy to make. It isn’t.
On my daily stroll on the internet searching for new material to post I met Constantin Nimigean from Romania. He runs a great inspiration blog Oitzarisme, full of new photography.

This year he started with Love Issue. It is his online magazine about the same things he is blogging about.
A few days ago he launched the fifth edition and I’m proud to announce that Osocio become media partner.

This edition of Love Issue is called ‘Distance’. Click to enlarge and enjoy.

I had a small talk with Constantin, read it after the break.

Make the world a McHappier place

Great news, everyone! After many years of tirelessly blogging the not-for-profit advertising world, Osocio has finally gained a corporate sponsor! Please welcome our new partner, Guy Whitbred, from McDonald’s Worldwide!

“McDonald’s Corporation is proud to sponsor Osocio’s mission to show the best of not-for-profit marketing. We too believe in making the world a McHappier place!”

Don’t expect too many changes to the way things are done here, though! We’ll still be serving up fresh Grade A socially responsible campaigns from the not for profit world as well as from our partner’s extensive portfolio of McCSR projects like the children’s video “Jimmy visits the Happy McChicken Farm” the nutritional series “Beef is Cool, Bro!”, and a number of adorable testimonials from children in McDonald’s sponsored public schools in America.

On April 2, we will also launch our premium paid subscriber “Super-Size” service. Just $15 USD/month gets you access to all Osocio paywall content, as well as exclusive coupons for McDonald’s sandwich combos.

Onwards and upwards with McOsocio! Would you like fries with that?

Nominees for the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2010 announced

Osocio is proud to announce a list of twenty nominees for the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2010 award.

Last year, we did this for the first time and it was quite interesting. In 2010 we did it a little differently.
Each month, all the Osocio bloggers voted for the Campaign of the Month. The result: 15 great campaigns shortlisted for this Campaign of the Year election (15 because in three months we had two winners).
From all second places I choose personally 5 editor picks. that makes 20 nominees in total.

Changing behaviours
“We’re in the business of changing behaviours, not winning awards.” is the statement Armando made last year. Why are we doing this award, then? Because we want to put the most creative and innovative social ads in the spotlight, so that non-profit organizations can learn and benefit from these best practices.

We don’t intend to compete with big advertising festivals. Our aim is to award grassroots initiatives and advertising campaigns that try to solve real-life problems. Let’s not forget that Osocio is the place where advertising and activism collide.

Evolution
The 20 nominees this year show us a remarkable evolution in social advertising. When I started blogging about this niche industry in 2005, most of the campaigns where print-only. The majority of the campaigns in 2010 are driven by online video. Digital and real-world interactivity, and social media, are growing fast. My prediction for 2011 is that these two will be the leading campaign instruments.

Jury
Just like last year each jury member will choose a top-10 from the nominees list and score them from 1 to 10.
All Osocio bloggers are members of the jury. And I’m proud to announce these ten external jury members:

• Aurélia Courtot, founder and blogger at influence-ethique.fr.
• Constantin Nimigean, Owner and blogger at oitzarisme, an important inspirational website about photography and founder of Love Issue online magazine.
• Fırat Yıldız, Art Director at McCann Erickson Turkey and blogfriend for a long time at Elma+Alt+Shift.
• Geoff Livingston, former public relations strategist, now Co-Founder, CMO at Zoetica.
• Jean julien Guyot, Trust Manager at agency SID LEE and blogfriend for a long time at IPUB.
• Martina Zavagno: Interactive marketer working for a premium sports brand. And famous advertising blogger at Adverblog.
• Nedra Kline Weinreich, Founder of Weinreich Communications, expert in the field of Social Marketing.
• Olga Figurska, Editor in Chief at the Polish website about social advertising Kampanie Społeczne.
• Sacha Declomesnil: E-marketing and web2.0 strategist. Specialist in fundraising 2.0. His blog.
• Tim Nudd, Editor at AdFreak.com.

The deadline for the jury is February 5.
The winner will be announced at February 7.

This is the Top 20 list of the best social campaigns featured on Osocio in 2010. One of these campaigns will become the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2010 (see them after the break):

Blog Action Day 2010: Water

Just like the previous two years Osocio will participate with Blog Action Day.
Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action.

This year it is about water. One in eight of us don’t have access to clean safe drinking water. At OSocio we know how important this issue is. A lot of awareness and fundraising campaigns came along the last two years. On October 15 we will do various posts about water.

Every blogger can contribute. Read more about it at the Blog Action Day website.

From 2,000 blog posts to 2,000 friends

This is blogpost No. 2,000 and we’re proud!

Osocio is proud to publish our 2,000th blog post! The next step is to get 2,000 friends on Facebook. So please give us YOUR ideas about how to do that.

When we started we had no idea where making a blog about non-profit campaigns would end up.

As you can read at the about page I started blogging about non-profit campaigns at my own small place (with the mediæval blog software at xs4all.nl) under the name Houtlust.

It started as an experiment, not intended to go anywhere.

Houtlust surprisingly grew and on 28-11-2007 I started the blog you are reading now. It’s not my personal playground but a group blog, with great bloggers and friends from around the world.

As we were at the beginning, we’re still the biggest blog about this communication niche. In absolute numbers we’re not a big blog but I’m proud to say that we’re influential. We feature campaigns from agencies, designers and NGO’s all over the world. And Osocio is very often used as a source for other blogs, courses and campaign strategies.

In this post I look back, using all kind of statistics and trivia. Read it after the break.
But with you we want to look forward. The media landscape has changed a lot since I started blogging in 2005. And we want to grow with it. We’ve decided that the first step is making our community bigger. We’re not doing it for the money. We all make Osocio in our spare time, and of course we don’t do it for profit. 
“We’re in the business of changing behaviors” Armando once said. And we are looking for better ways to do this with you.

We’re active on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook and we have learned that Facebook is the best place for us to meet you. In a short period of time our Facebook Fan Page has grown to 1,000 fans. For that we need your help.

Remember the co-creation interview we did with Neil Hopkins, the man behind the Embrace Life campaign. We did it with you. 
We did the Campaign of the Year award and we will do it again. But also with you.

Of course we have more thoughts about where we want to go, but for now we need ideas for increasing the number of Facebook fans. Do you have an idea for making it 2,000 in a short period of time?
Let us know at the Osocio Facebook Fan Page.

The three best ideas will be rewarded with:

A pair of Plakkies, the slipper from South Africa.

Or a t-shirt from the great Skull-A-Day collection from designer and Osocio blogger Noah Scalin

Or a print from the great collection of the work from designer and Osocio blogger Dan Matutina

Choose a Different Ending, the Osocio’s Campaign of 2009, wins Grand Prix for Good on Cannes Lions

Choose A Different Ending, the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2009, received the Grand Prix for Good on the Cannes Lions festival.

This year, Cannes Lions introduced a new Grand Prix to “reward entries ineligible to win a Grand Prix in their sections because they are made for charities and public services”. The winner is chosen from not-for-profit entries that won Gold in any of the Cannes Lions contests (e.g. Direct, Outdoor, Film, Cyber, Media etc). The choice is made by the Titanium & Integrated jury. In 2011, we’ll send results of the Osocio’s Best Campaign of the Year contest to the Cannes Lions jury to save their time:-)

We are glad that the choice of Osocio was confirmed by the Cannes Lions jury. And we are really happy for the Metropolitan Police and their agency AMV BBDO from London, UK. Our congratulations!

From the Classroom to the World (via Osocio)

Posters designed by students in my class Design Rebels in Richmond, Virginia, have been transformed as part of a gender sensitivity awareness program in the Philippines into a new campaign again prostitution thanks to a post on Osocio! Details follow…