Category Archives: Social campaigns

A smile for Unicef

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.

Thank you for (not) smoking

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, a great idea

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. via LSD.

The Good Food Fight experience

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!

The Schiphol experience

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.

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MTV educates teens with ME

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.

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The “Protect your head” campaign

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.

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Don’t You Forget About Me

Youtube tries to make itself useful not only to individual exhibitionists and brands seeking some Web 2.0 attention, but also to charity organizations that can benefit as well from massive exposure. Last week the channel DontYouForgetAboutMe has been launched in the UK, with the goal of bringing the plight of missing children to a wider and younger audience. The channel has been set up by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), in collaboration with the Find Madeleine Campaign and with the support of Youtube. Interesting to point out, it’s not possible to copy & embedd the code of any of the videos uploaded by the user DontYouForgetAboutMe.

Love is not just a game

The summer is the best season of the year to fall in love. For a night or forever, doesn’t matter, as long as you “protect” yourself. In France a new site has just been launched to spread the word about the risk of summer’s encounters, and explain to teenagers (but not only to them) what can put them at risk of contracting AIDS. The site, called www.touteslesrencontressontpossibles.com (all possible encounters) has been developed by X-Prime with a style that is serious but engagingly amusing at the same time. Given the sensible topic, they did a great job using graphics and drawings to picture typical summer’s situations and send out straightforward messages to the teens. Even if the site is all in French, I’m sure you can find your way through the content. There is actually quite a lot to discover, but the easiest/fastest way to appreciate the campaign is simply to select an avatar and follow the path unveiled after the choice. You will be taken through a series of summer’s scenes (the beach, the disco etc…) where you will get an explanation on the right thing to do when you “fall in love” with someone. As far as I remember, this is the first website built to raise awareness on the dangers contracting AIDS. If you know of other campaigns, would be great if you could share a link and/or leave a comment. Thanks! via Damien’s blog.

5 seconds are important

From Spain, an interesting example of a Youtube-like interface “hacked” to become part of the message. The campaign wants to draw attention on the importance of donating blood on regular basis. PS: click on the image above to watch the video. I didn’t manage to get the code on my pages…