One-upwomanship

I'll just link to the topless video, to pander to those of you at prudish workplaces, but Osocio Weblog reports on a Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign that does Boobyball's tease one (okay, "two") better by focussing on breasts au naturel:

Where ReThink Breast Cancer failed in their communication for this years Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Pink Ribbon magazine made a wonderfull approach: Circle of life. The campaign shows the evoluation in womens life. Don’t let breast cancer interrupt.

Not sure if I should have corrected the ESL writing, but you get the point. Scroll down for a tasteful print version:



God bless the Europeans (in this case, Grey Amsterdam), for taking an honest and woman-centric approach

Soo far away from Toronto

My dad is from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and we have a cottage there (sorry, "camp") that we go to every year, so I'm always partial to news from the Soo.

So it was that I stumbled across this controversial campaign for recruiting Toronto students to enroll at Algoma University, based simply on the fact that it's so far away from home:




According to Soo Today, the Algoma U student union has received complaints from students and faculty, and are "calling for the advertising campaign to be replaced with a positive campaign reflecting the many positive geographical and institutional attributes that are marketed more extensively in Northern Ontario."

In other words, while Algoma U is promoting "Academic Excellence Focused on You" to northerners, its appeal to Southern Ontario students is being portrayed as just getting several hundred clicks the hell away from the parents.

In my opinion (and I've done a lot of enrollment advertising) the creative is eye-catching and somewhat insightful. It's the strategy that is all wrong. When all you're using to differentiate yourself from local schools is distance down the highway, you're competing with every other school a day or more away.

Compare this with what Carleton is doing to attract Totonto students, with their "anything but textbook" campaign.

Sure, some students just want to leave home far behind them for personal reasons, but that's not enough reason to choose your school out of many options. You have to be different, and special.

I love the Soo. Best Italian-Canadian food in the country, and a great place to enjoy the beauty of Ontario's northland. Add to that a friendly city and some unique academic experiences, and you might just have a USP...

Eurobesity

Yesterday, the European Union Agriculture Commissioner launched a healthy eating program for kids throughout the EU.

According to coverage from the CBC, the EU estimates that 22 million European children who are overweight, and five million are obese. (That's one overweight child for every 22.7 people, versus the United States' one in every 12.2.)

Here's the EU's own description of the program (note targetted countries):

The Healthy Eating Campaign will run alongside the EU’s School Fruit Scheme and School Milk Scheme – important initiatives for a more balanced diet and healthier eating habits amongst children.

The Healthy Eating Campaign takes the message: Eat it, Drink it, Move it right into schools. Over the course of eight weeks, the roadshow will travel through Belgium, France, the UK, Ireland, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. Each roadshow will visit two schools a day. In total the healthy eating activities will reach 18 000 kids in 180 schools. The message to deliver is: Eat well, because it’s fun to be fit.

In parallel with the roadshow, an interactive treasure hunt game will be running over the 8 weeks on the EU's Tasty Bunch web site, where all EU schoolchildren aged 8 to 15 could try to win a number of sports items.

A recent Eurobarometer survey showed three quarters of respondents “totally agreeing” that “there seem to be more overweight children these days than five years ago". Indeed, around 22 million kids are overweight in the EU, of which 5 million are obese.

As a social marketer, I applaud this effort to put nutritional information in children's hands. But as a parent, I doubt it will have much impact.

I strongly believe that healthy eating habits start at home, by ensuring your child is exposed to a wide variety of tasty and healthy homemade foods, and teaching them some basic cooking skills. This helps set their appetites in the right direction, and I hope that making my son a foodie from a young age will provide some protection from the endless temptations of junk food once he's "out there" on his own.

I could be overconfident about how well my clever plan will work in the long run, but regardless I think that campaigns for healthier eating at school are doomed if the kids go home to crappy convenience food every night. If all you eat is sugar, salt and fat, everything else is going to taste less appealing.

What do you think?

Fun with H1N1?

Here at Acart, we're busy executing the Public Health Agency of Canada's H1N1 preparedness campaign's fall flight. As you can imagine, we follow all advertising developments involving this issue quite thoroughly.

A recent news search brought up this fun user-generated video by John D. Clarke, MD:



Dr. Clarke is the winner of the Center for Disease Control's H1N1 PSA Contest. Voted most popular video by viewers, he won $2,500 and will have his PSA aired nationally.

This contest has got people talking about H1N1 prevention, and now the CDC gets to pay just $2,500 in talent fees for a national commercial that already has buzz. I only wish we had thought of it first.

Join the conversation... or else!

The Internet grew another layer of interactivity this week, as Google announced the beta version of Sidewiki, a browser add-on that lets you comment and share information on a sidebar applied to any page on the Web, like this:



(Click to enlarge)

For people who are hungry for more ways to share content, expertise, and comments in a more collaborative way — even on Web 1.0 sites — this is great news. For organizations that try to dictate their online brand from the boardroom, and stifle public criticism, this is very bad news indeed.

Personally, I love a good unmoderated thread. I try to encourage our clients to stop being afraid of criticism or mockery, and instead use it as real-time market research to help fine-tune their brand. Sure, you can yank comments that are truly inappropriate (racism, etc.) or nuke the trolls after the fact. (I'm looking your way, Pat!) But it doesn't actually hurt you if someone has their say in the vicinity of your own content.

As well, according to PC World, there is some automated quality control built into Sidewiki with a "quality algorithm" that puts the most useful posts at the top of the sidebar. (We'll see how well that works.)

Most people will be unaware of the conversations at first, because you have to add the app to your browser (get it here) before you can see the posts. But there are bound to be some pretty interesting stories around Sidewiki over the next few weeks, as big brands come to terms with 4Chan-like comments beside their carefully-worded, trademarked and copyrighted content. But there's no reason to be afraid. These things have a way of playing themselves out.

Too much?

Maybe for this blog, if not for the cause. But here goes. It's a jiggly new PSA for Boobyball, an annual Toronto event "to inspire a new generation of young philanthropists to get involved and create a future without breast cancer".

Let's see what this ad inspires in you:



In case you're wondering who is exploiting whom, the woman in the ads is Aliya Jasmine Sovani, from MTV Canada. She's the co-chair of the event in support of Rethink Breast Cancer, and the writer, co-producer and Creative Director of the spot.

Here's what she thinks of it:



The basic idea is that young people aren't responding to breast cancer information featuring older women and sad situations. The ad is designed to appeal to a generation who have grown up with "Girls Gone Wild" and a generally "show me" culture. So instead of talking about disease and death, the PSA talks about how much everyone loves breasts.

Knowing (older) people who have, or have had, breast cancer, I'm not so sure they'd find this approach tasteful or appropriate. On the other hand, so many ads use breasts to get attention to sell useless things. At least these ones are out there for a cause.

What do you think?

**UPDATE: This viral has made CNN. The question now is, will the spot raise the profile of breast cancer prevention and detection worldwide, or just that of Ms. Sovani?**

**UPDATE 2: Kerry wanted to know what the song in the video was, so I creeped Aliya Jasmine on Facebook, and passed on the query. She wrote back to say it's called "The girl is Mine" by Rosnick. Can't find a band link, but thanks for the intel! (I am still, however, awaiting confirmation on that friend request...)

Possibly the worst Internet ad I have ever seen (and clicked on)

Caught this ad on Fark.com. I know their rates are pretty cheap, but I can honestly say I have never before seen an ad try less hard than this to get me to click.

I've seen centred default font before. I've even seen red asterisks used for emphasis. And "engrish" copy. But I think it's the hand-drawn arrows and circle around the URL that make this ad epic bad.

So of course I clicked it. Let me spare you the effort. It took me to this page:



And for some reason, I clicked again. Here's what I got:

Hi I am Mukesh, your stress help. What I have is unique tips for how you can be always stress free. It is very important that you are stress free. You are happy and have control of your life.

My friends call me stress free mentor. In last five years I help many people to be stress free. I am a cancer survivor. I fought cancer since 1995. I had three surgeries and my speech is impaired by this. I had tones of stress. I search and spent lot of time and money for stress relief. By experience I found some simple things which are good for managing stress.

You have shown interest and I will send you my paper ‘How do you invite stress’. You simply email me with your name and email and I will send you link to download paper. Read ‘How do you invite stress’ and you will feel better.

And no campaign would be complete without 100% authentic testimonials, such as:

"this is the guide am expecting for a long time i mean to get rid of my stress. thanks. good work. fabulous thinking."

"Good guide for relieving stress to enlighten life which is very stressful. Thanks for writing such a marvelous guide.

"Dear Mr Shah: I applaud your effort in attempting to create a tool for assisting people in relieving one of the most prevalent health problems that plagues society. Unfortunately, the book does not come across as a professional product. Having good conversational command of the English language is one thing, the ability to communicate well in writing is quite another. My advice to you is have someone who is a native English speaker rewrite the book for you."

Yes, that last one is really there.

So here's to you, Mr. Mukesh Shah. You are either the worst marketer of all time, or the best. After all, you certainly sucked me in.

Does click-through matter?

As far back as the turn of the century, there were people saying it doesn't. But over and over again, I see clients evaluating online campaigns for click-through rates. But in many cases, the ads themselves are not designed to generate clicks.

Here's the problem — there are two basic kinds of banner ads out there:

1) Awareness/branding

These ads are really just billboards on the (I cringe as I type this) "information superhighway". They act just like outdoor ads, because they only want to make you aware of a new movie, basic message, or consumer brand.



This is pure branding. They don't really need you to do anything besides look, and realize that this is part of an integrated campaign.

2) Direct marketing

These ads are the junk mail of the Internet. They show up uninvited on your homepage, and they want to entice you to act. "Punch the monkey and win a prize!" "Find your best insurance rate!" "Meet hot singles in your area!" Or maybe just finish up your education.



If these ads seem more lurid and crass, it's because they are. Direct marketing is designed to get you to act, and the creative will use any trick in the book to get you to open that envelope — or in this case, to click the ad. They're like a desperate salesman with his foot in the door. Billboards, on the other hand, can take a higher road — whatever the medium.

Both kinds of banner ads are valid marketing strategies, but they can become marketing tragedies if you don't know which kind of banner your ad is supposed to be.

This is something that's particularly difficult in government social marketing, when the message is simple enough to be effectively communicated in a flash, but the campaign is evaluated on how many users click though "for more information".

Billboard or junk mail? It's your call. But you have to make the right one early on, before your objectives come back to haunt you.

Brand Cops

Those of us involved in the creation and maintenance of brands know that the job doesn't end when you hand your work over to the client. If it's going to work, there needs to be an understanding — and a rulebook — about applying the brand and preventing its misuse. The person who looks after this is called a Brand Manager, but more colloquially as a Brand Champion or Brand Cop.

Usually, the Brand Cop's job is to maintain brand standards and message within an organization. But with larger brands, this also extends to ensuring that partners, sponsored events, and various ad and deign agencies who touch the brand all follow the rules.When I did some work for AT&T with another agency, for example, I received a "brand bible" the size of its namesake and spent an all-day session with a Brand Manager from Corporate to get it right.

In the case of the 2010 Olympics, however, the concept of Brand Cops is being taken to a whole new level:

Organizers of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics will send roving teams of observers with the power to confiscate non-Olympic material outside the venues if they feel it violates the Olympic experience, CBC News has learned.

...

The IOC directive was obtained by CBC News through a Freedom of Information request. A central focus of the so-called clean-venues guidelines is stopping "ambush marketing" and ensuring that non-Olympic sponsors don't try to hitch a free ride on the Games.

"Brand protection teams of two or more members will conduct surveillance on foot, within and around each venue or cluster of venues, at neighbouring areas and in the city to ensure that venues are clean internally, to carry out surveillance for incidents of ambush marketing and to handle and report such activity in the appropriate manner with the goal of ceasing such activity," the IOC document says.

"Ambush marketing" has always been a big issue at the Olympics. When you get an event as big as the Olympics, many non-sponsors try to bask in the glow without paying for "official" status.

While regulating the theft of such a big and valuable brand by commercial freeloaders is quite understandable to most people, there's a dark side to the Olympic brand beat. The CBC adds that the IOC document includes a how-to guide for keeping the Olympic venues free of political, ethnic or religious protest. "The teams will have the power to confiscate material that violates the Olympic brand, and remove unauthorized banners or signs." (Like the gory and seemingly misplaced parody logo that PETA is doing, I suppose.)

Obviously, this potential censoring of protesters' use of Olympic trademarks does not go over well with civil liberties people in B.C. They're countering by having their own street teams follow the Olympic Brand Cops around with video cameras, documenting any potential violations of protected free speech.

Whatever happens, it'll make great reality TV. What you gonna do when they come for you?

Kid appeal

The British Department of Health is launching a new anti-smoking campaign that gets to the heart of the matter: kids who don't want their parents to die young.

According to The Bolton News, a local 10-year-old was recruited by a film crew who were collecting the stories of children of smokers.

Cole Lonsdale appears in ads that will appear on national TV during Coronation Street — presumably a smokey target audience — as well as transit posters:



Other children are featured in ads as well, and the family stories behind them are profiled in the Mirror.

What's interesting about this campaign is that it doesn't talk about secondhand smoke. Cole's mom says she never smokes in her house, or in front of the boy. Rather, it's a continuation of a campaign that tries to make parents aware that good parenting includes not harming yourself:



Will it work? If it were my own child, I'd be heartbroken. It remains to be seen if other British parents can put themselves and their kids in the place of the people they see in ads.

Is "DIY" the end of the agency?

This is the question asked by Brand Republic, with the conclusion: "it might be time to start coming up with some reasons for clients as to why they shouldn't turn their marketing problems over to the hive mind to solve."

To me, there is a huge difference between idea generation and creative development.

A great idea can come from anywhere. Agency people have always known this. While Creatives are the ones tasked with the job, client services people, clients, even admin staff have been known to chirp up with excellent ideas when given the chance. Sometimes entire campaigns are built around conversations that focus group members have when the moderator leaves the room and they forget they are being watched. Just the other day, my Kindergarten-age son said something in the bath that became a concept for a commercial. Even spoof ads from Adbusters can inspire the very people they mock.

But having ideas is not the hardest part about being an advertising Creative. Knowing which ideas are right for the job is.

Throwing your brand open to the ideas of the masses isn't that much different than training intern Copywriters. You get back all kinds of crazy and inappropriate shite, but you can sometimes sift gems out of it. Without strategic guidance and Creative Direction, however, they are just ideas. Concepts are those ideas that pass the creative brief acid test of brand, objectives, message and audience, and can be executed effectively on budget.

So go ahead and get your ideas from adhack if you like. Run a contest to get user submissions for "reality advertising". But you'll never get rid of the admen. Just as with reality TV, the storytelling is all in the editing.

It was inevitable: This blog is Godwinned (slight nudity)

Not even a social issues marketing blog is immune from Godwin's Law, which states "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"...

Well, here it is. An ad by Germany's das comitee that compares AIDS to Hitler:



And here it is in German:



The steamy TV ad can be seen here: (warning: there's even more nudity and sex in it)

Aids is a mass murderer @ Yahoo! Video

And here's the campaign web site.

So, is this more, less, or just as justified as the rejected World Trade Center WWF ads that I blogged last week? Does 60+ years make a historical event less inappropriate as a PSA hook?

Personally, I just find this shock ad a little creatively lazy. The reason Godwin's Law is an internet meme is because invoking Hitler or Nazis in a non-WWII-themed discussion is seen as a lazy troll tactic. Is this ad any better, just because it's for an important cause?

If shock ads are what it takes to further raise AIDS awareness in the 21st century, I prefer the French approach.

UPDATE: Vice Magazine covers the PR hitlerf*ck of the agency's explanation. (via @Copyranter)

Barney Rubble at the Rub-a-Dub

According to Sky News, the British Medical Association wants UK media regulators to impose a total ban on alcohol advertising, including at sports events, as well as put an end to promotions like Happy Hour.

From their report:

"Alcohol marketing communications have a powerful effect on young people and come in many forms. These include traditional advertisements on television through ubiquitous ambient advertising to new media such as social network sites and viral campaigns. The cumulative effect of this promotion is to reinforce and exaggerate strong pro-alcohol social norms."

This follows closely on the heels of last spring's statement by the British Chief Medical Officer that “Cheap alcohol is killing us as never before."

Wow. I knew the Brits were heavy drinkers, but this official zero-tolerance reaction reminds me of why the Americans like to call the UK a "nanny state"...

I mean, is promotion and availability alcohol really the reason that so many Brits are drunks, or is it just a result of despair from the pessimistic economic outlook that so many generations of them have grown up with? Hell, if I lived in a world like that portrayed by Coronation Street, I'd probably be drinking all the time, too.

What the British really need, in my opinion, is not to denormalize alcohol, but rather re-normalize it as a moderate social drink of good cheer. However, first they'll need something to be cheerful about.

FOLLOWUP: Nice letter to the editor in The Times Online.

Remembering our Oscar night

Kerry and I were just talking today about an old campaign we did for the Hnatyshyn Foundation five years ago:



That's right, Oscar Peterson. Canada's greatest gift to the jazz world. We jumped at the opportunity to promote his charity event, and we knew exactly how we wanted to do it — by hearkening back to the golden age of concert posters.

The best part of it all is that I got to meet Oscar after the concert. Despite having one hand mostly paralyzed by stroke, he put on one hell of a performance. He came to the after-party in a wheelchair, and I got in the reception line.

My wife was with me, several months pregnant at the time, and our little guy had been kicking up a storm during the show. When we got to the front of the line, all I could think to say is "It's an honour to meet you, my kid loves your music." He put a hand on my wife's belly, and said "that's great!", smiling ear to ear.

He died three years later. Of all the people I've met in this job, he'll always be my favourite.

Happy weekend.

Chained by Facebook

"No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day."

The latest grassroots Facebook Status Meme addresses the bitter debate over healthcare in Obama's United States.

Anyone who has spent any time on American internet fora knows how nasty this stuff can get. Something that's taken for granted in the rest of the civilized world — publicly funded basic healthcare — in the U.S. has become the most divisive issue since teaching science in schools.

But why are Canadians getting involved? I got two updates this morning from fellow hosers, good and smart people who I assume did so as a show of support for the American movement. When whoever started this chain-letter tallies up the hits, I doubt they'll differentiate between Canadian and U.S. buzz.

As I snarked to another Facebook friend, "I guess Canadians see themselves as secret agents of change"...

That said, I think the only thing it will accomplish is to further enrage conservative social networking pundits in the U.S. (They're now trying to work up a counter-status update.) Oh well, at least it has them talking.

Corporate Social Responsible Drinking (CSRD)

Today, Acart launched the new Centre For Responsible Drinking web site.



Funded by our client, the Brewers Association of Canada, the Centre for Responsible Drinking is all about respecting alcohol, and all its effects — both positive and negative — on our health, safety, and society.

What I like about this approach — and the Brewers in general — is that as a society we finally seem to be getting beyond seeing alcohol as a vice, and instead can once again consider moderate social drinking a normal part of life... provided you plan ahead to avoid impaired driving or the well-known perils of overindulgence.

This thinking is enshrined in the National Alcohol Strategy — developed by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, Health Canada and the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission — which recognizes:

"... the notion of sensible alcohol consumption, that alcohol has a place in society and that people who drink moderately benefit. The NAS also:

• differentiates between responsible consumption and misuse;
• seeks the knowledge, input and experience of all stakeholders, including industry;
• stresses the development of partnerships between industry and the larger community, including addictions experts, researchers, academics, NGOs and government;
• supports and encourages research leading to a better understanding of alcohol misuse and the development of new initiatives; and,
• emphasizes targeted programs and education."

In a post-Prohibition age when the President of the United States can attempt to resolve race conflicts with a friendly beer, it's nice to see that Canadians are finally emerging from Victorian attitudes about alcohol with a modern, responsible, perspective. At least in social marketing strategy.

Or, as the proverb says, "Little fools drink too much and great fools none at all."

Now you know why I never drive anywhere ;)

WWFTF?

I'm sure you've seen it by now. The DDB Brazil ad that got the WWF in trouble, even though they rejected it:



Headline: "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it."

According to Adfreak, WWF has said the ad was "never authorized or approved by any WWF person on the planet", DDB has apologized (in Portuguese), and the creative team has been terminated.

We all make bad creative judgements once in a while, especially with the need to stand out among media overload, but these missteps are usually corrected in the boardroom (or at last resort) by someone on the client end.

This ad, however, was submitted to the One Show — and even won an "award of merit". (Don't look for it now, though. It's gone.)

So the the work of a creative team in one corner of the world ends up making the whole industry look bad, just because they thought their concept was too good to go into exile in the spec portfolio. Thanks, guys. Just when we were starting to be hated a little less than lawyers.

The Minority Blues

So it looks like Canada is up for another election.

Whatever you think of the various parties, or even our Parliamentary system in general, what you may not know about is an election's impact on Ottawa's advertising industry.

You see, ever since the sponsorship scandal, there's been a moratorium on most Federal Government advertising and opinion polls from the moment an election is called until the new (or returning) government is in place.

The purpose of this is to present a campaigning leader from using taxpayer-funded advertising to push his or her platform; the fallout is that many important and non-partisan social marketing campaigns get seriously delayed or killed by the delays and potential changes in policy.

So, with yesterday's announcement by the Opposition, Ottawa and Montreal agencies that specialize in federal social marketing are hoping their campaigns in progress see the light of day before Parliament reconvenes. But if not, we'll survive. At this point, we're quite used to it.