8-year-old NHS PSA causes fresh outrage over victim blaming

Via Daily Mail

Patrick, a reader, made me aware of the latest example of an anti-binge-drinking ad that ends up promoting the culture of blaming victims of rape.

In this case, it's the UK government's National Health Service that is causing outrage.

The Drum reports that the poster actually dates back to 2006,  part of the "Know Your Limits" campaign, but it is still available as part of an online toolkit and posted in some health facilities.

A Change.org petition, launched recently, states:

Two honourable intentions -- to stop people drinking, and to stop rape happening - are being completely deformed. Of course we don't want people to drink so much they make themselves ill, but threatening them with rape by implication is not the way to do it. Of course we don't want anyone to endure sexual assault and rape, but making them feel like it's their fault if they do, is so far out of order. 

It is not consistent with the NHS' own guidelines on 'Help after rape and sexual assault' in which they say 'If you have been sexually assaulted, remember that it wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter what you were wearing, where you were or whether you had been drinking. A sexual assault is always the fault of the perpetrator.' This is a much more helpful approach, and we ask the NHS and the Home Office to destroy this poster in all formats. 

It currently has over 62,000 signatures.

There have been a number of prominent anti-alcohol campaigns in recent years that have hit these same triggers, including PSAs by MADD, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, CabWise and West Mercia Police.

The fact that the NHS campaign is an older one shows how far we've come in understanding the cultural issues around rape in just a few years, but it is also a reminder to keep your PSA libraries up-to-date.

The most honest ad you may read today

It's a job posting for "female escorts" that appeared on a Malaysian government job site managed by the Department of Works and Pensions, according to the Chronicle.

The Copywriter may not be great at English, but he or she is pretty clear about the job requirements: "go out with guys maybe for an evening or have full on sex."

Prostitution is not technically illegal in Malaysia, but soliciting sex is. After automatically posting, the ad was deemed "inappropriate" by government authorities, and promptly removed from the site.

A man speaking for the advertised company told press, "I put the advert up there because it’s a job site and it’s a job. I was a bit shocked they allowed it."

According to this source, Malaysia has one of the world's highest percentages of sex-workers, with 52 people per 10,000 in the trade. Many are trafficked foreigners, however, and the United States "Trafficking in Persons" program has the country on a watch list for human rights violations.                                                      

Awkward stereotypes sell border security in Dutch PSAs

From a purely digital marketing perspective, this campaign by JWTAmsterdam is brilliant. They use serial online video ads that track the user to create a highly-interruptive, running storyline:



The downside is that the stereotypes of the Asian and Arab merchant are pretty cringeworthy. Whether or not they are based on the creative/production teams' experiences abroad, they certainly take the ethnic clichés to a cartoonish level.

Could the campaign have worked without the send-up? I like to think so. While the stereotypes are played for laughs, the videos would have been just as interruptive and compelling with a little more subtlety (and respect) in the performance.

Tip via Ads of The World

Awkward Headline of the Day #2 #FdAdFriday

Via Copyranter

Now that Rick Santorum is out of the race, it's nice to see some new political headline awkwardness.

A Photoshop disaster in the House of Commons

This is a little off blog topic, but my last post regarded sex and politics, and this is too ridiculous not to share.

This is the official profile page for one of Canada's new MPs, Rathika Sitsabaiesan. The honourable member was elected in the riding of Scarborough—Rouge River on May 2, standing for the New Democratic Party.

Do you notice anything strange about her picture?

Let's blow it up a bit:

Contrarian reader Mark Austin thought it looked a little odd, and was able to find the original at OpenParliament (it has since also been replaced):

As a 29-year-old Millennial woman, The Honourable Ms. Sitsabaiesan probably felt the top she wore to her portrait sitting was just fine. It is fine, as a matter of fact, and no different than what any other woman would wear in a modern business situation.

But somebody thought otherwise. Whether she herself had second thoughts, or whether someone behind the scenes at the House of Commons had a moment of extreme prudishness, the completely awful photoshop cleavage-ectomy has now made the pages of Jezebel.

And that's far more embarrassing than seeing the modest bits of your Member of Parliament's breasts.

Nonetheless, I post this to mock prudishness and bad Photoshop—not the rookie MP, who has taken on a thankless job in public service that I would never want. I wish her and her colleagues the best of luck in the new session.

Britain: What's so great about it?*

(*With a nod to every Irish, Scottish and Welshman/woman who has ever uttered that phrase.)

In advance of the 2012 London Olympics, The UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport has launched a postcard and poster campaign that cranks the nationalism up to WWII-era levels.

This time, however, the propaganda is aimed at the outside world. The campaign was developed by the DCMS on behalf of the Prime Minister, working with colleagues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Trade & Investment, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, VisitBritain, and the British Council. 

The examples of "greatness" run the gamut from general themes like environment, scenery, research and technology to modern icons such as Wallace & Gromit, Richard Branson,  serial wife-killer Henry VIII and shoe fetishist Nicholas Kirkwood.

Below I've posted all the postcards (ignore the crop marks, they're converted PDFs). What do you think of Great Britain's newfound public patriotism? Is it just what they need, or is that kind of patriotism a little scary these days?

Thanks to Neil H. for the tip.

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.

We've got issues

I just read a headline that made me smile: "Boom in Issues Advertising Could Net Agencies $1 Billion".

Okay, they're talking about the United States with its shiny new government, but it's still nice to have our corner of the market validated. (Coincidentally, I'm actually doing some American social issues work right now, but more about that in a later blog.)

Here in the Great White North, the recession is also driving spending in social marketing. A new Economic Action Plan needs to be explained to the public, and other government priorities like security, health and the environment continue to require outreach. The government has to advertise, no matter what the economic climate.

This is a smart time to be in Social Issues Marketing. We're busy here on a number of government, association, and corporate social responsibility campaigns that will roll out over the next few months.

But it sounds like the U.S. issues advertising boom is not quite like the Canadian one:

"With the ad business the way it is right now and a big pile of money sitting out in the world of politics, there's no doubt traditional agencies will try to jump in," said Vinny Minchillo, chief creative officer of Scott Howell & Co. ... They will fail ... It's not uncommon for political clients to have television production budgets of under $15,000 per spot and a need to be on the air in 48 hours ... The hard-core retail shops probably have the best chance of being able to adapt quickly. Also the shops with employees who don't care much about sleeping."

Yikes! And here I was thinking that work-life balance was one of the most important issues of all...

Of course, the American article is talking about the hardcore world of Washington lobbyists. I see advocacy ads in The Hill Times and on bus shelters in front of Parliament Hill every day (we've even been responsible for some of them), but for the most part our clients are asking us to execute timely campaigns based on long-term communications strategies. We've done our share of crisis communications, but nothing like the dog-eat-dog scenario painted by Mr. Minchillo.

But then again, Minchillo continues to refer to Issues Advertising as "political". Up here, "political" advertising is kind of a hot potato.

I'll stick with communicating Canada's issues with appropriate niceness.

A Message From The Government of Canada

Today I'm supposed to speak to a class at Algonquin College about "writing for television".

Now, I've worked on quite a few TV spots over the years, and I've learned quite a bit. But most of it is really "how to write a 30-second spot that fits within a competitive budget and government policies and still not have it suck".

This is not meant as any slight to the clients. They're working under the same constraints, which are forced upon them by political realities and the extra scrutiny the public turns on when they see an ad they've paid for in taxes. Our best government clients act more like partners, working with us to navigate the barriers and pitfalls throughout the process.

Working together, we manage to create good work. Just last month, our campaign for Public Safety Canada's 72 Hours Emergency Preparedness packed a good amount of information, drama, and motivation into 27.5 seconds (leaving the mandatory 2.5 second "A Message From The Government of Canada" tag).

How we got there was an exercise in knowing our client's internal audiences as well as we know the public ones.

Budget

On every government job, we have to write a detailed proposal outlining our skills, experience, approach, and budget. Even if we don't go with the spec concept pitched, we are usually tied to those numbers.

Since talent tends to be our biggest production cost consideration on a national campaign, we try to keep it minimal. No casts of thousands for us.

Language

All Canadian government advertising has to be equally effective in English and French. No hiring separate agencies to regionalize the message; we need an almost identical spot. Most times, this (as well as budget) means we end up shooting a silent spot with voiceover added in post. This has become even more common now that many of our spots get dubbed into multiple "ethnic" languages. (LGT a CFIA spot we did, coincidentally, with the same Quebec Director as 72 Hours.)

Inclusivity

We must always represent "all Canadians". This means showing representatives of lots of visibly different populations within Canada. If we're casting an unrelated group, the challenge is just to make the mix not looked contrived. In a family situation, however, we have two choices: show a family of mixed origins (as in the 72 Hours spot); or else cast people who are more ethnically ambiguous ("Mediterranean" is a popular catch-all.)

Beyond ethnic inclusivity, we also have to consider age, income, region... within the most targetted audience, there can still be a fair amount of diversity. So we usually shoot for averages.

Focus Groups and Committees

Finally, our work is scrutinized by two rounds of focus groups across Canada, as well as two or three high-level decision-making groups within government who we never get to meet directly. We have to anticipate the objectives of policy-makers, as well as the subjectivity of members of the public willing to give up their evening for fifty bucks and a stale sandwich.

And yet somehow, we do it. I guess all agencies have similar challenges with other sectors. Our particular constraints would probably frustrate a consumer agency... but at the end of the day it's just nice to get our work on TV. Plus, we actually might help some people.