Posts Tagged ‘non-profit’

Bleeding Billboard Slows Traffic Deaths

Monday, July 13th, 2009


It’s a few weeks after the annual Cannes Advertising Festival. I was able to post early on our agency’s Gold Lions win for Pringles, but I’m a bit slow in sharing other examples of great, meaningful advertising from the show. This week I’ll share a few examples of my favorite work.

First up is this incredibly powerful and simple idea from BBDO in New Zealand that won a Bronze Lion in the Design competition. The video above tells the story much better than I can, but in summary, its goal is to reduce car accidents on the roads of Papakura, New Zealand, which tend to spike when rains come and roads become slippery. This campaign reduced road deaths on this particular piece of roadway to zero.

It is great to see a piece of brilliant, meaningful marketing for a nonprofit issue here. One might argue that all cause-related and nonprofit marketing is meaningful, but I don’t believe that is the case. Issue-related nonprofits are in sales just like regular businesses; their goal is to “sell in” their point of view on a topic. But unless they draw true engagement and value for the targeted audience, they fail.

In this case, local government is trying to “sell” its drivers on the need to slow down during rain. To measure success, instead of tracking sales of a product, it is tracking the number of road accidents and fatalities. And clearly some marketing is more effective than others. Imagine TV commercials or print ads with a policeman or government official lecturing a viewer about the need to drive cautiously during rains. Failure is almost assured for such an approach because it does not come at a relevant time in an engaging way. Here, the bleeding billboards not only come at the right place and time (roadside during rain), but they communicate the message in a way that embodies the tragedy of drivers’ failure to adjust—the photo of a young child. This beats a flashing yellow warning sign any day. Not only is this effective in its roadside ad placement, but the ad has been viewed nearly 500,000 times on YouTube in less than a month.

My hope is that the concept and framework of Marketing with Meaning is also used by nonprofit organizations to better their strategy and results. Coming up in my book, The Next Evolution of Marketing, I share the story of how another nonprofit issue organization, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, dramatically shifted its marketing approach from interruptive ads to meaningful messages and advice. I may also try to do something in the marketing of the book to specifically reach out to nonprofits, perhaps in a nonprofit way. Stay tuned and, as always, your ideas in the comments are welcome and appreciated!

(Special thanks to Chris Zieverink from our Creative team, who not only sent me this link but just created a killer logo for Marketing with Meaning that I’ll be sharing here soon.)

Making Nonprofit Marketing Meaningful

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Let’s face it: A lot of nonprofit marketing campaigns are horrible, despite the fact that their messages can and should be very meaningful – and their media placement and advertising development are often provided pro bono. Too often, nonprofits cannot decide if they want to raise money or raise awareness. And they tend to start the creative process by going straight to print ads or 30-second commercials, because, well, it’s free. Pro-bono creative work often means that the agency goes into la-la land with its work.

But some nonprofits are understanding how to make a bigger impact by starting with the needs of their audiences. My current favorite is the two-minute video above from the British Heart Foundation. Here, the group recognized that they need to add value to the audience by educating them on what a heart attack feels like.

That in itself is an outstanding creative brief for an advertising agency to receive. And Grey in the UK took this assignment to an amazing place. Instead of checklists or cuteness, Grey went for the jugular with a very realistic, first-person, long-format video. The acting is great, the editing is outstanding, and there is a real, emotional pull with the first-person view. It’s not really a video; it’s an experience.

I’m a little disappointed that this has less than 100,000 total views on YouTube, which suggests this hasn’t hit the viral takeoff point yet. But I’m not privy to how this is airing and being received in the UK.

Kudos to the British Heart Foundation and Grey UK for going way beyond the typical, and giving us killer creative that makes meaning in people’s lives.