In the UK the British Heart Foundation has recently launched the Food4Thought website with the aim of promoting healthy lifestyle to children.
The site is a sort of adventure game, where children play exploring a virtual city full of junk food advertising messages. As explained on NMA, the idea of the BHF is to run a digital campaign that employes the tactics used by snack brands which continue to advertise through child-focused sites.
From the UK, a nice project by the British Heart Foundation to explain young people how the heart works and how to keep it healthy.
The topic is tricky, and the audience is even more complicated to reach and understand, so it's quite interesting to browse around and discover the tools the BHF has decided to use to deliver the message.
From the Czech Republic a great print campaign to promote road safety. Don't talk over the phone while you drive. Crash and Accident, the new fragrances for silly people.
Today, the European Union started an interesting anti-smoking campaign. Via NicoMarket.com several spoof products, which will stimulate the negative side effects of smoking, are promoted.
My personal favourite is NicoClean, a face cream enriched with tobacco extracts. "With Nicoclean, you can add ten years to your look in less than one week." :)
Campaign is planned by Isobar, created by Ligaris and seeded by GoViral.
From Austalia, a curious online action to raise money for charity. The tag line it's "You play, we pay" and it's basically just another smart way to promote the Xbox 360 game Halo 3, this time with an ethical marketing approach. By saying this I don't want to sound negative, it's a charity action, so I appreciate it by default.
The advergame consists of a golf challenge, the closer to the hole you shoot the ball, the higher the donation Microsoft will do to the charity organization you decided to play for. Looking at the numbers of plays registered on the site, the initiative seems to be pretty successful.
From France, an excellent campaign for road safety dedicated to scooter drivers. The copy in this ad actually makes the difference. It's quite a challenge for me to translate French into English, but I'll give it a try...
You pass just with the orange light.
You drive just a little too fast.
You drive just a little too close.
You are just a little bit dead.
On a motorcycle, you can't forget just a little bit the rules.
Respect the rules.
User generated content can create value for charities as well. In Argentina, Oral-B (a P&G brand) is currently running an integrated campaign to sell more products for mouth health, but also to raise money for Unicef.
The online part it's interesting: users are invited to upload on a dedicated mini-site a photograph of their children smiling. For every photo uploaded Oral-B will donate 1$ to Unicef to help Argentinean kids.
If you like science fiction and you’d like to quit smoking, this is the site for you: www.quitdoingit.com.
A part from the good video interface and the sarcastic domain name, I can't say I found the experience cool and engaging enough to convince me to quit smoking (maybe because I don't smoke? ;-) but as usual I appreciate the effort of using the Web to deliver socially relevant messages.
Also, if you click around, you'll find a sort of Web 2.0 program called FixNixer that should help you quit smoking in 21 days...
A Blind Call is one of the smartest social campaigns taking advantage of technology I've ever seen. How often do you forget to lock your mobile phone keypad and you unknowingly start making calls to your friends Alice, Anna or Andrew? And how much money have you lost with such unwanted calls? Think about it. Wouldn't it be better to give such money to charity?
And here comes the great idea by Guillaume Duval: first to create a special number that when is dialed donates to costs of the call to a charity organization for blind people, and then to recommend to people in Belgium to save such number as "A blind call" in order to be the first name in their phone book.
The site to support the idea is extremely simple, but think about it, the idea is so smart and strong that there isn't much else to say to convince people.
Can edutainment teach Americans (and not only them) how to eat properly? I don't know whether The Good Food Fight is going to achieve its educational purpose, but the whole thing is amusing and, what interests me more, comes up with an innovative interactive experience.
I would say it's a video advergame, extremely well conceived and developed, with a touch of surprise effect that takes interactivity a step further than usual. Looking at the old lady running and jumping through the site interface is fun, even if hitting her with the food isn't as easy as it might seem...
Unfortunately even if the gaming experience is good, the site is disappointing in the way it delivers the nutritional information. At the end of the game what you get is only a (not so clear) link to the recipe on another site. The game is completely stand alone and doesn't feature any tip on how to improve your nutrition (not even in the game itself). So in the end this project ends up being a nice exercise in entertainment and a poor example of online communication... too bad!
Dutch agency Achtung shows us again that they have great skills in creating 3D worlds. Their latest work is a website to explain and illustrate what happens in Schiphol, Amsterdam's airport.
Everything is in Dutch, but you don't have to speak the language to understand what's going on in the Schiphol world, do like kids do and just enjoy the great animations to find out its secrets. Learn how planes take off and land, discover how freights are managed and the potentials of the airport surrounding area.
The site is impressive. I must admit that at first I didn't understand the ultimate communication/marketing goal of such a project, but fortunately Dirk provided me with the key to appreciate it and realize it isn't just a nice aestetic exercise.
In the UK, MTV has launched an educational advergame to guide teens through young life's sensitive issues. The edugame has been produced with the support of Y-Peer (the Youth Peer Education Network) and it represents a great example of online communication to teens (see also the recent French project).
"ME" it's a "point & click" experience, not very intuitive at first sight, but actually very much in line (and inspired) with the Lucas Art's Monkey Island series we all loved ages ago. Despite being based on such an "old" mechanism, the game has on the contrary a very contemporary look & feel surely appealing for today's youth audience.
As Rob from Preloaded explained me, ME is set across four locations, in which the players push the story forward by solving puzzles, making decisions and participating in exchanges with other characters they meet along the way. As they progress, a virtual PDA collects further reading for them on the subject matters they have encountered or tackled during the game, which they can print to keep and read later. Issues concerning sex and sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, drink and drug abuse, bullying and other social topics are covered without being condescending or patronising, with humour and choice playing a large part.
From Canada (via Freddy's blog), acampaign to raise awareness around the risks of brain injuries. The idea is to convince people to wear an helmet everytime the perform potentially risk activities, such as biking, skating, but also working in a construction site.
The website features a 3D brain that simulates what everyday social situations may be like after suffering brain injury. You can take a series of tests by answering questions or playing little games that show you how your capabilities may result affected if you don't protect your head.
I really like the approach and the tone of voice they've given to this campaign, because it touches important points to get teens' attention but, at the same time, sends out a positive message: having fun doing crazy things it's not prohibited, but remember to protect your head when you do it (see the "can I go out and play?" section).
The agency behind the site is Artistech Newmedia while the offline side of the campaign has been created by DDB Canada. If you continue reading this entry, you'll see the print ads they've created.
, this time with an ethical marketing approach. By saying this I don't want to sound negative, it's a charity action, so I appreciate it by default.
