Girl effect is a campaign to end poverty and help developing world through the unique potential of girls. In fact the girl effect is not only one big campaign but hundreds of thousands campaigns spread by people like us. I think that this video is a good example of the general campaign and message.
Lately, we have seen a lot of video clips based on kinetic typography but this one has an interesting use of colours to support the message. They succeeded to reinforce it by using orange colour when they explain the girl effect principles, bringing life and light in the presentation. This colour is opposed to the black and white combination used to implement the context and increase the dramatic effect. I find this use of colours very pedagogical. It brings a dynamic – increased by the music – and strengthens the message.
The advantage of this type of communication is that they can reach a large scale of people and age through a logical demonstration. And for me, the aim is to convince people through this argumentation and not particularly to create an emotion. So this use of kinetic typography is really well adapted to their cause and well realized.
You can also watch more videos and have some information about the girl effect on their website: girleffect.org.
Here is one of the best idea in terms of communication I have seen recently! Petition isone of the less attractive communication tools, but Amnesty International succeeded to promote it with those great ads against torture. The idea was to make people see and understand the power of their signature. So even if it seems to be an insignificant act it matters. This campaign is simple, effective, concrete and an awesome idea.
We recently had the opportunity to see several campaigns about breast cancer. I’d like to confront two of them to show how they succeeded to catch their audience.
The first one is based in Singapore targeting women for breast examination with 3 prints. The second one is a Polish campaign based on viral advertising for men. It trains them to examine their partners’ breast and encourage breast cancer screening.
Prints for women
The Breast Cancer Foundation of Singapore offered a new awareness campaign created by DDB Singapore to promote breast examination.
They chose humour through body painting to pass their message. Breasts are really well integrated in those paintings and become an entire part of it, like jean’s buttons or pimple. Drawing women like comics with some of their complexes and obsessions is really clever. It creates an opposition between appearance and what matters. The artistic direction is also really well done and adapted to the target: humour and self-derision with an artistic dimension. Women can picture themselves in those situations. It increases the chance that the message reach the audience, have an impact and encourage them to go to breast exam.
Viral advertising for men
This campaign, created by Change Integrated Poland, is original because it is for men who are not directly concerned by breast cancer. Quite a challenge! They chose to create a viral advertising campaign.
It was integrated in the front page of one of the most famous website in the adult part. They replaced one of the pictures with their own. The idea is that men will click on it and start following instructions show by the woman. In playing they will learn how to examine their partner’s breast and help prevent breast cancer. They only discover the aim of this game at the end of the slide-show.
In terms of communications, I think that it is a good strategy and seems to be a success:
Viral advertising is a good way to communicate about an event or a cause: around 175 000 person have seen this campaign and be trained in a week. Moreover, viral advertising has generally an important impact and success like Tippex or WWF with the exibition 1600 pandas.
The cost: It is less expensive to train men through this kind of on-line support than off-line breast check training courses. Nevertheless, I don’t think that we can compare them – in terms of quality – but it seems to be a good introduction. It can also reach more people and increase the chance to encourage them to be more concerned about it.
The audience: they targeted men for this campaign and it seems that they found a good way to reach them. This campaign can be a subject of criticism because they sexualized cancer. It is true that the campaign aid is an adult website so in this way I have to agree. Showing breast to say that it is not shameful or lewd thing like in nursing or to prevent you from breast cancer is one thing and maybe in choosing this communication aid they went too far.
They succeeded to adapt with success a delicate subject to a public which is not directly concerned. So it was important to speak about this campaign. In addition they used a viral strategy which seems to be a raising practice in nonprofit.
The interesting point of those campaigns is that they spoke about the same subject in targeting two different audiences. They also chose two strategies: prints and viral advertising. We can notice that they both had some lightness in it – comic drawings and game – adapted to their target to reach them. They both tried to integrate people habits or life to pass the message and add it in their life.
Publicis (Caracas) created for Amnesty International – Venezuela – a campaign which tackles social issues, saying: « Indifference turns reality into contradiction».
Two subjects are underlined in this campaign: shanty towns and prisons (seems like it). The effect is created by the words chosen to name streets. In the first print, we can read El Paraiso/Paradise and see in the background a shanty town. Even if it’s sunny, we all know that living there is nothing like heaven. In the second one, the name La Paz/Peace is on a building wall which looks like a prison. We can consider this association kind of ironic. The opposition between environment and names is strengthened by the catch phrase in the logo.
I don’t think that the first goal of this campaign is to encourage people to take action immediately but think about elements which constitute society and the effect of indifference to poverty. So it is a nice driving force behind social reflection at a local and international level.
WaterAid offered a new campaign about a common disease in our countries: Diarrhoea. The NGO chose to speak about it because it causes a high rate of infant mortality in poorest countries.
Who is more appropriate to speak about infant mortality than children? This group of children from primary school is fun; singing a song about diarrhoea, making noises, like any children in our countries. However, when the child from a southern village ends the song, he is not having fun or laughing. He seems more serious and less carefree. This effect is reinforced by the number of children dying of it every day, which adds a tragic dimension.
The advantage of choosing kids to sing and speak about it is a good way to avoid pathos, even if the off screen voice is kind of tragic. Nevertheless, the organization didn’t fall into the common use of dying children to encourage people to make donations. So the interesting point is this use of childish lightness to pass a message. It also reminds us that a simple annoyance like diarrhoea can have more disastrous implications in poorest countries. Meanwhile, they make the solution quite “simple”: dig toilets and we can easily help through donations.
The most interesting aspect for me in this campaign is that humour and simplicity are a good way to speak about delicate subjects. A thing that sometimes we forgot .
This time I would like to share with you two awareness campaigns: one for Biodiversity And Biosafety Awareness from WWF France (Agency: Ogilvy, Paris, France) and an other from WWF Spain (Agency: Contrapunto BBDO, Madrid, Spain) about energy consumption.
WWF France: “What will it take before we respect the planet?”
WWF Spain: “If you don´t use it, turn it off. WWF.”
What is really interesting in those campaigns is that we can observe a major element of WWF communication. They usually refer to elements from our daily life which create a link between the cause and our life. For example, graffiti in the French campaign and objects from home in the Spanish one. It allows us to integrate the subject in our own reality.
Moreover, images are strong and really well realized. However, I think that the strength of WWF campaigns is in the combination of images and catch phrases. They don’t only explain the pictures but ad a dimension that make us think about it and our actions’ repercussions. This is what I like about it, simplicity but also an occasion to think about our habits and maybe to improve them. And it seems quite simple for some of them like turning off a ventilator
WWF Spain and Leo Burnett Iberia created a special campaign for the Madrid Comic Show, also promoted in top comic book stores in Spain.
The interesting point in this campaign is that they succeeded to adapt it to the event and to create a way to increase youngsters awareness of endangered species protection through their interest. Moreover illustrations are just amazing.
June 6th 2010 was Médecins du Monde‘s birthday. 30 years ago MDM was published in the Official Journal, which makes a new association official in France.
June 7th was MDM’s new communications campaign launch, based on its anniversary. Their target is people between 25/35 years old, knowing the organization but not its aim or how to help. The message of this campaign is «Nous sommes tous Médecins du Monde » (We are all world’s doctors).They oriented it on their present and future actions, their actors and donors.
Concerning the offline part, they entrusted Saatchi & Saatchi to realize it:
Those prints reflect four of MDM’s fights: HIV/AIDS, violence against women, help to migrants and emergency interventions. There is an interesting game in the realization: when we look at it in the first place, we create short-cuts between photo and text. But when we take the time to read the paragraph in white, we can see that they are not victims but donors. It is a really good game based on our preconceptions.
About the online part, MDM decided to create a web documentary.
It is a realization composed of témoignages from five 30 years old people from five different continents. MDM tried to show an evolution from 30 years ago with French doctors to actual MDM’s people who are not necessarily doctors or French.
The other part is a contest in which people can create a documentary to explain what precariousness means to them. At the end, the winner will be diffused by MDM and Dailymotion.
This part of the communication campaign is a good example of how important témoignage is in MDM’s actions and values and how they try to combine it with new technologies. In addition, we can observe that there is a « new » trend in nonprofit communication which boosts donors’ self-esteem.
Here is a short video part of “Don’t let it drop” campaign organized by WaterAid. The aim of this International NGO is to improve access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation and give a better life to world’s poorest countries.
This campaign is linked to the Millennium Development Goals Summit in September where our world’s leaders are going to take stock of the situation. This video encourages us to sign a petition to ensure that our leaders don’t forget about their commitment to water and sanitation.
The idea and the realization are good and well related to the subject. The addition of data increase the effect. To encourage people to sign a petition, this is a good video.
Just a little note to share with you this great awareness campaign about Polio from CCBT India:
It is just one question « How will your child’s life be without a polio dose? Something like this » and a sign that they have reinvented to transmit their message. This is a really good idea and example of how to be simple and have a strong impact.
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