Doing Good with a Twist

A refreshing new take on the dreary PSA

A Public Service Announcement – or any type of "you should know this because it's good for you" advertising – doesn't have to be the dreary, preachy, finger-wagging type of message that we're used to. A new batch of do-good campaigns prove that leading with entertainment value first and foremost can often do the trick better than playing it straight.

This new breed of PSA features:

(1) Fantastic production values – as good as anything you'd see on TV and YouTube, the feel is epic, sweeping, or just plain Saturday Night Live funny.

(2) A creative theme – from nature documentaries to a War of the Worlds-style alien invasion, they blur the line between satire and imitation, playing on creative tropes that we know and love.

(3) A surprising twist – the do-good messages here are anything but obvious, either woven subtly (and darkly!) throughout the narrative or revealed as a surprise at the end.

Have a look for yourself!

A Cheesy Love Story (from SumofUs.org)

Kill the K-Cup (by Egg Studios)

Great Canadian Migrations (by Environmental Defence)

What do YOU think? Will you be killing your K-Cups anytime soon? Let me know by commenting below!

Redefining the Way We Think at TEDxToronto

What does the word "Redefinition" mean to you?

This was one of the questions posed to me on the not-so-simple application to attend TEDxToronto - a local spin-off of the famous ideas conference. Here was my answer:

To me, "Redefinition" is all about changing the way that people perceive things or the way in which they interact with things - ultimately influencing the way that they live their lives. Perception alone can be profoundly impactful: heroes can quickly become villains (Obama), a great resource can quickly become a national embarrassment (the oil sands). Changing how people interact with things takes more work, but can be just as influential: for example, the X-box Kinect has redefined how people interact with technology by removing the need for buttons or a touch screen. Either way, "redefinition" = change.

Not bad, huh? What about you - still thinking? Good. Because I've got some inspiration for you. Lucky for me, I passed my TEDxToronto test and was able to score a ticket to the event (woohooo!). It was an amazing day of hearing from thought-leaders, trading ideas with like-minded people, and generally getting my mind blown every few hours or so. Below are different takes on how we can "redefine" the way we think about the world - enjoy!


Never Accept "No"

Think about when you were just a little child, Bilaal Rajen (who I've written about previously), implored us. You never accepted the word "no" when it came to your bedtime, bath time, or eating the vegetables on your plate. But now that you're older, and supposedly wiser, you say "no" to a lot of things. Maybe it's because the nature of the things that we now have to face - global warming, Third-world hunger, a fragile economy - and their broad, overarching implications, that makes us accept them as they are. But a redefinition of social activism means we say "no" to the things that we know must change. Funnily enough, it's the youth of the world that have continued to say "no", even into early adulthood. As Bilaal cannily put it, "The youth of today aren’t the leaders of tomorrow, they’re the leaders of today!”


When Something Doesn't Exist, Create It

Brandon Hay spent most of his childhood with a father who was barely there. Then one day, he became a father himself. Looking to learn about what it takes to be a father from other members of the community, he headed to his nearest community centre to sign up for a parenting program. What he found - or didn't find - surprised him: not only was there no program for black fathers, there was no program for fathers, period. Nothing existed. Determined to combat the "normalization of crises" in black communities (much of which is the result of absent male role models), Brandon decided to take things into his own hands. He created Black Daddies, a support group and meetup for fathers to share their experiences and learn from each other. Where there was nothing, Brandon Hay created it. As a result, he's redefining fatherhood in the black community.


"Know Thyself"

What do you typically do when you need a break - "some time with yourself". If you're like most people, you retreat from the world and escape from the reality of life by travelling to a different country, going camping, or simply getting away from normality. But, as Ariel Garten of Interaxon implored, understanding yourself isn't about getting away from the real world, it's about understanding yourself in the here and now. Her organization's pet project - "thought-controlled computing" - allows people to tap into their inner thought patterns, feelings, and states of mind in order to give them a better awareness of themselves... inside. She calls this new paradigm of self-feedback "Intra-active" - building a relationship with yourself through an increased awareness and understanding. By understanding the world inside of you, you can then make more sense of the world outside of you. “If you could think it, you could discover it, you could bring it to life.”


Using Your Head and Your Heart

How do you define your relationship with those in need - say children in Third-world Africa? You might feel sad that "we" have a lot while "they" have to suffer. But as George Roter of Engineers Without Borders puts it, "There is no 'us' and 'them', there's really just 'us'!" How then, to approach improving the situation for "us"? He proposes using both our heads and our hearts. Typically, our hearts rule: we see poverty in Africa as an immediate, personal problem - and so we send them bed kits and build them schools so that we can see the immediate impact of what we're doing. But if we used our heads a bit more, and think of the problem as something that's long-term and impersonal, we can end up with solutions - driven by geo-mapping data and technology - that ultimately do a better job of helping "us".


Semantic Baggage

Finally, we can even redefine the way we think about things as simple as words. Nicholas Schiefer aimed to move beyond the convention, which defines a word as a distinct element with its own meaning. This is the definition that Google Search depends on: its "independence assumption" assumes that each word typed into the search box is distinct. But, as Nicholas points out, words don't exist in a vacuum - they have "semantic baggage", connections and relationships to other words. His search engine, Apodoro, operates by exploiting this network of words and their inherent relationships, so that the key words alone don't determine which documents are retrieved during a search. This redefinition of the word, in fact, won't just help us get to better search - it will help us understand our own language.


Inspired yet? Had enough time to think? Then I'll ask again: what does "Redefinition" mean to you? ;)

Change the world - how's that for a New Year's resolution?

Happy New Year! With the beginning of a new decade comes the tendency to look ahead to the future, take stock of where we are now and where we want to be, and then do something to make that happen. No more is this desire to make change evident than in today's youth. The Millennials (youth who were born or grew up during the last decade) have shown time and time again that their generation feels the need to stand up and make a meaningful difference in the world. Simply said, today's youth are compelled to rally around causes that are important to them.

Here are two quick examples of young people rising up to change two critical landscapes: government and the environment. Growing up, American youth endured government policies (war, a quest for oil, etc.) than ran counter to what they believe would make the world a better place. With Obama, they sensed an agent of change, a figurehead they could rally around to make things happen, and rallied to support him. Even those who were too young to vote acted as sparkplugs to convince those who were old enough to help bring change to the country.

Here's a video from the Obama camp that illustrates how important youth were to the election:

I was going to use Earth Hour as the second example, but I came upon a more recent illustration of the passion that youth have for changing the world. At December's global climate change conference in Copenhagen, a swarm of American youth crashed a series of live webcasts in protest against the government's lack of action. They aren't willing to sit around and wait for others to dither when it comes to the planet - they want change to happen now. Check out the video below:

Though youth tend to rally in large groups to make change happen, some are so inspired by a cause that they take an independent stand for what they believe in. Bilaal Rajan is a 13 year-old kid from Toronto who is a youth activist, philanthropist, author, and UNICEF's youngest ambassador. Beginning with a public campaign in which he went barefoot to raise awareness for underprivileged children in developing countries, he has now become an agent of change in general. Check out his website: http://www.makingchangenow.com. It makes you wonder, with all of his charity work, when does this kid have time to go to school?

Here's a CNN video on Bilaal's story:

Which brings us to what this note was supposed to be about: an upcoming event that will bring youth together in order to change the world. The event is called One Young World, and will act as a "summit" for the leaders of tomorrow - youth no older than 25 - to meet and discuss the best ways to make the world a better place. Here's a link to an article about it from The Economist.

The event, which is co-founded by two advertising execs, will be attended by 1,500 youth from around the world, selected proportionally according to each country's population (ie. China and India will have the most representatives). In order to be considered, youth wishing to become agents of change must rally support from their friends via a Facebook app and submit a video on YouTube making a case for themselves. Here's the recruitment video:

And don't worry, this event isn't make-believe. Meeting with the goal of "solving the world's problems", sessions chaired by influential leaders, like the UN's Kofi Annan and activist Desmond Tutu, will be streamed online and actual resolutions will be drafted in workshops. The summit will take place from the 8th to the 10th of February, in London, and its organizers are aiming for it to become an annual event. Stay tuned!

Head vs. Heart: A Tale of Two Campaigns

Happy holidays everyone! I want to share a quick, Christmas eve post on two competing campaigns that I've been thinking about for a while. It's interesting to see the difference between the way in which advertisers with very similar goals approached their campaigns, both in terms of strategic direction and creative execution. The advertisers in question? Two famous hospital foundations from the GTA.

First up is the Sunnybrook foundation. The work is part of the hospital's biggest donation drive ever, and so the objective of the brief must have been to create a campaign that incites action from people. We, as the audience, have to feel the need support Sunnybrook over competing hospital foundations. The strategy, from Sunnybrook AOR Dentsu, seems sound. What is it that sets Sunnybrook apart from its competitors? Innovation. Their experts are continually creating new solutions that further their ability to care for patients.

“They innovated a plastic bag that they put [premature] babies in so they retain body heat and better survive in the short term...Now, instead of seeing the hospital as a place where bad things are happening, I look at it and think amazing things are happening there.” - Glen Hunt, Creative Catalyst at Denstu

But innovation is meaningless on its own. The brief puts this differentiator into context by highlighting it "when it matters the most" - after car crashes, when a mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, etc. Simply said, then, the creative challenge was to illustrate "Innovation when it matters the most".

Here's the work:

As you can see, the creative takes an interesting direction. Rather than appealing to the heart, it appeals to the head, with a more rational, logical approach. The ads present a logical flow of information, linking objects to subjects to events and eventually arriving at the pay off: "That's why it matters". For example, one ad reads "This is the collision. This is the ambulance. This is when 36 specialists have 36 minutes to perform the impossible. This is the victim. This is the impossible. That's why it matters." Some may consider the tone and manner a bit cold. A colleague of mine likened it to math. 1 + 1 + 3 = 5. It's like saying "When this happens, it leads to this, which leads to this, which eventually leads to this... it's all logical, so if you don't support us, you're stupid." People are of course becoming more pragmatic and rational about where they spend their money, but they have hearts too, you know.


Another interesing part is the open-endedness of the pay-off and its call-to-action. What is the "it" referring to in "That's why it matters"? Is it simply the innovations that are happening at Sunnybrook? Am I supposed to note that in my head and file it away? Or is it subtly implying that its my donation that matters and it's a necessary part of making these innovations happen? It will be interesting to see how this campaign plays out in 2010.


Next up is the Sicks Kid's Hospital, with their "Believe" campaign. Again, they faced a similar task: raise awareness of the Sick Kids Foundation and drive donations. A key element of the brand is storytelling - that is, showing what goes on in the hospital and the kids who are treated there. These stories give people a reason to believe not only in Sick Kids, but that their donations make a difference in the lives of these children.


Part of the campaign is the "I Believe in Sick Kids" microsite, at which people can upload video stories illustrating why they believe in the hospital and the work that it does. The site coincides with two spots featuring former patients telling their stories. But the star of the campaign is the brand spot by JWT, which initially debuted a few years ago. I'm not usually a big fan of basing an entire creative execution on one song, but in this case, they nailed it. The spot features the well-known song "Lean on me", which is sung by the patients and doctors in a series of clips illustrating what happens at the hospital. Whether its an inspiring scene in which doctors are being educated, or a shot of a young child being treated, the spot is emotionally involving and pulls on our heartstrings. Here's the ad:

Unlike the Sunnybrook work, the Sick Kids ad doesn't need to link all of the pieces together to communicate why donating matters - the execution says it all. The tagline is also a pretty clear call-to-action: "Believe. Donations make a difference." And judging by the comments it's getting on YouTube, it appears to be resonating with its audience.


Which campaign resonates more with you? Which creative execution not only builds the brand in your eyes, but strikes up a desire in you to donate?


Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!