Here is a short article to share with you a new anti-drug campaign created by McCann Digital which uses the new facebook timeline: Adam Barak’s profile.

It is simple but they succeeded to use the update of a « common » tool and invent a campaign and world around. The opposition between two lives and choices is relevant, visuals are efficient and even if some may say that it is quite caricatural, the effect is there. So for me it’s a good idea!

Source: adverblog

Deforestation is an interesting topic to study in communication. Those two print campaigns highlight the fact that cutting a tree kills several species living in it. However they treat death and responsibility quite differently.
Simplicity is not the main ingredient to create a campaign with a real impact. It has to be combined, in this case, with public « integration », subtlety and several possible interpretation degrees, but not too much

Greenpeace played on origami art. The use of it with a bird’s skeleton may sense classical due to the fact that there is no real hidden meaning. But this choice is quite smart because of the use of one of the cause of deforestation: paper linked to origami which is an art. So the connection is clever but quite fast to make for the public between the paper, the skeleton and the deforestation. Moreover the public stays passive and it doesn’t really create an emotion. So this print is a good  to expose a fact/an information.

The Contemporary Art Museum and the Botanical Garden, Inhotim, chose a more symbolism path which may create more impact on the public. This campaign is based on a simple system: black and white figures. The interest is based on the symbolism provoked by two elements and common references that we all have; black shadows (animals) with white circles (growth rings) on top means targets. You may say that I am usually fan of simplicity but in communications that’s what’s difficult to reach. The message is easy to get: in cutting trees you also kill all animals living there but it may also allow a larger interpretation… By putting the public in the shooter position it can increase the degree of emotional impact and in a way a choice to make: encourage deforestation through paper or exotic wood items for exemple and shoot OR take a stand and be responsible in our purchases and don’t pull the trigger.

Here is a street marketing campaign combining art and environment. The aim is to make people face a simple reality and realize that this is what is going to happen if they don’t take action and vote (in this case) for compulsory recycling to curb water pollution.
To place a giant drinking straw in waterways, streams and rivers may be simple but sometimes simplicity is just what we need.

The Global Environment Center created the Arts and Earth Festival which point up this combination to make people question their habits or at least their environment. It may be quite « chocking » for people in the way that it is disgusting to think of drinking this water or may be too much in terms of communication. However they anticipated this kind of reaction with the board saying « Far Fetched? Remember what came out from your taps in January 2006″. Even if this campaign is from 2006, you may easily think – at first – that it was created few months ago. Maybe because the simplicity of the straw and the message make it timeless and adaptable to various environments and locations.

Is it a key for a sustainable street marketing? Or all the interest of street marketing is to be short-lived to have more impact?

Source: adsoftheworld.com

Greenpeace has created a new viral campaign transforming Volkswagen’s successful Darth Vader campaign. The aim of Greenpeace’s campaign is to denounce that the auto constructor is opposed to two environmental laws put forward by the European Union including lobbying for slower greenhouse gas reductions, less efficient cars and intending to be “the most eco-friendly automaker in the world”, but only 6% of the cars it sold in 2010 were its most efficient models*.

Episode I

Episode  II

The interesting part (and clever one) is the choice of one of the most successful 2011 car campaign. This video, presented for the first time during the Super Bowl in February 2011, was watched more than 40 million times on Youtube.

The use of the young Darth Vader was pertinent and created, for the most part, its success. However it was also a great inspiration for the agency, asking people to help to convince Darth Vader not to choose the Dark  Side through a campaign based on videos and a website.

So you can be part of this rebellion! As young padawans you can sign the Rebel manifesto, get access to the Jedi training program (through social medias and games) and exclusive news training. At the end you may win a collector tee-shirt Greenpeace/Volkswagen.
The use of Star Wars’ vocabulary, representations and stories creates a dynamic which encourage people to play and pass the message to progress in the game. We’ve watch Star Wars movies as spectators and they give us a chance to play a part in this environmental rebellion.

This type of game is uselly a good way to turn a campaign into viral like the for profit ones as the french campaign for AXE. Ok it’s a for profit campaign but if you have any examples of nonprofit ones, let me know

May the force be with you!

*Source : osocio, greenpeace

For the first time on my blog, I’m going to write in French, because I’ve a lot of things to say – just kidding So the subject is the annual national collect organized by the French Red Cross.

J’ai eu la chance hier matin d’être invitée à la présentation par la Croix Rouge Française de sa nouvelle campagne pour la quête nationale 2011 et de son nouveau dispositif Facebook (un peu de patience, je vous le dévoile un peu plus bas )

Petit rappel, nous avons eu depuis quelques temps l’habitude de voir les campagnes de cet événement Croix-Rouge portées par Adriana et Robert. Dans cette nouvelle campagne Adriana n’a pas disparu pour autant, pas de panique

Cette édition 2011 se veut plus sérieuse, avec un retour aux sources même de l’action de l’ONG. A travers son spot vidéo, elle nous rappelle ses domaines d’intervention avec la distribution des repas (50 millions chaque année), les secours aux personnes (76 000 par an) ou encore l’aide aux personnes dépendantes, aux enfants en dangers et aux individus en perte de lien social avec pour objectif la reconstruction de ce dernier. Elle agit également dans la formation des infirmières et plus connu par le grand public pour ses actions d’urgence et de développement au niveau international.
C’est donc un retour aux bases du secteur et des actions de la Croix-Rouge, qui se traduit parfaitement dans le slogan de cette nouvelle campagne « Sans don, pas d’action », car rien de tout ça n’est possible sans la générosité du public.

L’ONG a décidé d’utiliser tous les supports de communication pour faire passer son message : télévision, presse, web. En parlant de web, je vous ai annoncé un peu plus haut une innovation Facebook pour cette campagne… (roulement de tambours, pour l’effet)… la voici donc :

Cette nouvelle appli Facebook « Humanisons le web » est à la fois une quête en ligne et un jeu concours. Elle a pour principe de permettre au public de s’informer sur l’ONG mais également de visionner et partager les publicités d’autres délégations à travers le monde et des petits films de quelques minutes sur la réalité des actions de la Croix-Rouge Française. Il y a aussi la possibilité de gagner une initiation aux premiers secours avec Adriana (et oui Messieurs !) ou un séjour pour quatre personnes à Disney Land. Pour le concours, le but du jeu est simple : gagner un maximum de points en étant acteur de la diffusion du message de la Croix-Rouge sur Facebook grâce à différentes actions : installer le badge sur sa photo de profil, voter pour les vidéos et les partager, faire un don, et bien évidemment : inciter ses amis à rejoindre cette mobilisation en ligne.

Petit tour de cette appli :

Et comme on ne se fait de meilleure idée que par soi même, je vous invite à aller directement sur la page Facebook pour vous faire votre avis et me dire ce que vous en avez pensé

Selon moi, c’est une campagne ambitieuse mais qui met en avant ce qu’elle est, tout simplement. L’accroche de la vidéo est peut être moins importante que les années précédentes mais cela reste en corrélation avec l’objectif de cette campagne. J’aime également beaucoup cette idée d’humaniser le web en donnant la chance à cette communauté de devenir à son tour acteur et bénévole par ce canal de communication.

It’s been quite a while since my last article, but I’m back. So for this new note I’ve chosen a WWF campaign I just discovered.

Save the Cerrado from WWF-UK on Vimeo.

This short movie (realised by Neo agency) is interesting because it changes from traditional communication supports used to raise people awareness about environment. There is a good analogy between the fact that the solution is in our hands and this animation realized with hand shadows. Moreover, the performance and realisation are really great, creating an entire world to pass the message : stop deforestation in the Brazilian Cerrado. The Cerrado savannah is disappearing faster than the Amazon rainforest because of soya farming.

WWF UK is encouraging  UK consumers to take a simple action in asking their supermarkets to commit to buying all their soya from RTRS certified sources by 2015.
Will you?

Source: osocio.org

Even if I’m quite late, here is one of the best campaigns I’ve seen recently: Woman to go. It’s an Israelite campaign against human trafficking to make people aware of international sex slavery.

The concept “to go” feels like a take out to me. For the campaign it is smart, because it means that women are only products and not human beings who deserve respect and consideration. The logo is really appropriate: the woman’s body can have two meanings ; one sexual due to the position and the other painful, increased by the vertical lines on top. If we look carefully it can remind us – maybe due to our collective knowledge – the pieta position as you can see here:

They decided to organize an action in exposing women in an upscale mall storefront like any other product to sell.

This action is reinforced by this video named the Dislike Petition:

The video was published on Youtube through this page where you have the chance to like or dislike what you see. By pressing Dislike, you have the opportunity to vote against the scenario featured in the video and show your support to the fight against Human Trafficking. It reminds us the lobbying to add a dislike button to facebook

The website is also really well thought and realized. It’s like a real online shop where you buy your usual clothes or books. It follows exactly the campaign’s theme and goes even further with women you can choose, a gallery and a catalogue at the bottom. What I like is the tag on the right giving information like name, price, age, size, origin, etc. and of course the famous “add to card » button. It is a good example of perfectionism which makes it a good campaign – for me.

It was a really great strategy to implement this campaign in a mall and online. When you confront people directly to a situation it’s a great way to make an impact but the proportion of people reached is quite small. So going online is a smart choice to reach a larger panel and also because sex trade and slavery are online.

Source: osocio.org

Here is a new humoristic campaign created by Greenpeace France « Petrol Addict – Vivement la désintox« . It is a first for the NGO to target petrol customers. The idea can be linked to the concept of demand and supply and in this case: less demand means less supply so less production and pollution. The aim of the campaign is to raise people awareness about their petrol addiction.

They also took the same path initiated by Greenpeace UK which targeted oil investors « Go beyond oil« .

Les aveux de Franck

La confession de Brigitte

Le témoignage de Lucy

These videos are based on clichés from support groups or French society, like business men or high class woman. The humoristic part is created by misunderstandings (you don’t know which addiction they are talking about until the end) sustained by some good actors’ performances and characters.

As said in the article from Blog Oil Man, this campaign lacks of solutions, they just present facts. However, it is a good start to inform people of their « unrealized » addiction. It is also a quite sensitive subject and it seems that humour is a good choice for a first step. In the future they should go further in their approach because without some proposals or ideas they may left people wanting.

Source: Greenpeace : « Tous accro au pétrole » by Matthieu Auzanneau

For this new year I wanted to share with you a great campaign created by Lowe Brindfors – Sweden for Save the children UK.

In a fist place we can consider the internal organization. They chose to oppose two posters with the same structure: on the right part a moment of our reality and on the left part some others, less peaceful and easy. If we observe the photos on the right, we can see that individually they got an artistic dimension which could also be used for some advertising campaign like camping furniture or running shoes. They present some life instants in which we can easily picture ourselves. On the left, those photos are more distant from us, like a photo coverage. The message of each one is transformed when they are opposed, creating a new one strengthened by this disposition.

There is no text in those prints except the website. It allows the internal organization and the photos to create an effect and the audience to be touched by it. The name of the website – which is also the name of the campaign – simply undertake the photos and the meaning of the campaign.

For us, it is obvious that we are privileged but the aim of the campaign isn’t really clear: make us react to share our luck or arouse our curiosity? To found out more about it and the interactive part of this campaign visit the website which is awesome and really well realized!

Source: mymodernmet.com

Here is a really good idea from WWF: a new unprintable file format.

We all know PDF files and recognize that it is really useful to share big documents in this format. Moreover you can read it easily, don’t have to print it so you can save paper. However a lot of people print their pdf out to read or archive them. That’s why WWF created a new format: .wwf which is the same principle than a pdf but it is impossible to print it out. So in saving and sharing your documents as WWF files you save trees.

This video is a good demonstration of this new green file format.

Isn’t it simple and a good initiative?

Spread the word: saveaswwf.com