Helpers-EU.com is not your traditional campaign, but rather a web series promoted by the European Union to raise awareness about the dangers of tobacco.
In partnership with Daily Motion, but also with a Youtube channel the animated films are a fun way to inform young europeans, but also engaging them with the web series by allowing them to vote on the theme/tip for the next episode.
The series depicts 3 super-heroes who try to save smokers and non-smokers from the negative effects of tobacco, by giving them absurd tips and advice. Chuck, Skinny and Loona, accompanied by Tapas, a masochistic freak of nature that won’t leave them alone, unify their strengths for better or for worst.
You can also find the Helpers on Facebook and Beebo.
A short break on these holidays didn’t helped to pick up my regular posting schedule, as i forced myself to unwire my lifestyle. As i resume a lot of on-hold projects, and decide what to do in 2010 on this digital canvas, time to do a short mention to another place were my writing goes, Osocio.org, that has recently announced the nominees for Best Social Campaign of 2009:
The winner is to be announced next week, and hopefully 2010 will bring a new fature: “Campaign of the Month”. For more details, check the original post at Osocio.org.
Land’s End is sponsoring this year the Big Boston Warm-Up, an effort to make the season warmer for the homeless people in the Boston area. Collecting one coat at a time (donated at Sears), but also setting up a beautiful website, developed by Firstborn NYC.
The infographic rich website also informs about the installation at Boylston Plaza with 738 figures waiting for a warm red heart, meaning that 10 people have donated coats for each figure.
Finally, do check the also special and personalized video after the jump.
Many countries around the world have been implementing smoking bans as public health policy. In Brazil, the state of São Paulo has issued last month a ban on indoor smoking, with the usual controversy amongst citizens.
Instead of taking sides, ad agency Fischer and digitial agency PIX, elaborated the installation “The Smoking Plant”, where 2 plants on a glass case where placed side by side, but with one of the sunflowers exposed to cigarette smoke. The whole experiment was live on the Internet during the past 2 weeks, with the results shown on the video below:
During the 97 cigars smoked, the project updated the progress on Twitter and created a great amount interaction with users, offering also a screensaver to follow the experiment from the desktop.
Many thanks to Carlos Merigo, for hastily providing the video subtitled in English.
Not Fab from fabulous, but rather Fab from making and using fabbers, machines that can make almost anything, by printing three dimensional objects.
From commercial to the more open-source hardware and software solutions at Fab@home, these machines will enable people to download and print objects, experimenting with shared projects and try out new materials. Fabber owners improve these models and share physical objects with other fabbers, with the same enthusiasm as the pioneers of open source movement.
The wave of innovation brought by Web 2.0 technologies, with a sustainable co-creation by thousands of users, is now expanding to the physical world. The signs are there: from hacker (in the creative sense) communities like Make, Instructables or the more neo-Craftsy website Etsy.com, people are getting more comfortable with the idea of building something with their own hands. It’s about feeling empowered, the hands-on experience of building something, appealing not only to our darwinian survival skills but also have a bit of science fiction premonition (remember Luke Skywalker building C3PO as a young kid?). Yes, because even young kids are starting to love the tinkering, as shown on the TED Talk below, by Gever Tulley:
If all this seems futuristic to you, just try to imagine how IKEA will look in a decade: instead of boxed items, dozens of 3d printers are available at the cashier. You just take the blueprints and super fast hardware will print that out. Or even better: for smaller items, you just download the schematic at IKEA Fab Store and print them at home.
Yes, it seems far fetched. But so did Augmented Reality a decade ago. I just hope the media won’t hype Fab as much as they did with AR. Universal manufacturing is something that could change society in unexpected ways, the same way Internet did, by redefining industries and democratizing innovation. It comes nonetheless with a new set of dilemmas, such as the degree of experimentation or control of outputs.
As for companies, they’d better start thinking how their old models of patents stand up to this new paradigm, with a product’s life cycle being dramatically redefined. And, who knows, maybe even involve the consumers in true User Generated Products.
From civil war to natural disaster, Mozambique has been plagued with an uncertain future. ImaginingMozambique.com brings to attention this daily struggle, exhibiting the works of several artists as an inspiration to the African country.
123Klan, Carlos Serrao, Catalina Estrada, Akinori Oishi, Balint Zsako, Florence Manlik, Giuliano and Federico, Marcos Chin, Matt Maitland, Parra, Superdeux collaboreted on this effort for ASEM, a charity founded to help the children of Mozambique.
On the website, developed by Studio Cartelle, a firefly shotboux allows users to leave their messages of support to the cause, with a exhibition gallery featuring the works.
The traveling art show premieres 27th August at Maxalot Gallery, Amsterdam until 10th September, later residing in the offices of Wieden+Kennedy
The story of the last great supply of fresh drinking water on Earth. The changes affecting the Great Lakes. A beautiful soundtrack for an epic journey. Now on the web, developed by Jam3, at http://waterlife.nfb.ca/
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs 2009, the film is narrated by Gord Downie, featuring music by Sam Roberts, Sufjan Stevens, Sigur Rós, Robbie Robertson and Brian Eno.
With Cannes Lions Advertising Festival starting to roll, maybe the ad people enjoying the sun and booze take a few minutes out of their time to reflect on a better way to spend their talents and convince the organization and rest of the industry on creating advertising that does make a difference, instead of using it as an excuse to get a piece of metal.
Last year, on a short Twitter exchange with Marc from Osocio on the subject of awards and social marketing, i replied:
We’re in the business of changing behaviours, not winning awards.
Fast forward to Cannes 2009, and on a great collaboration with the duo from StealOurIdeas.com, Osocio presents their draft concepts on how your brand should be used for the right reasons,
Every year hundreds of PSAs are done for the wrong reasons.
Help us to create social advertising that actually makes a difference.
The next time you catch a creative doing spoof work just to win awards, forward these concepts so he or she could get a few really noble ideas.
The next 3 days i’ll be blogging at OFFF 2009, the International Festival for the Post-Digital Creation Culture. From multimedia to design and motion, in 2009 the festival is celebrating visual culture on an incredible venue. Believe me, i’ve been there yesterday and the place is huge with a kick ass audiovisual setup. Besides the Roots room, Loopita also looked great and Mercadillo reached the largest number of guests of all editions.
You probably can meet me at Mercadillo, on Prt.sc boot, as i’ll be covering the event for the blog network and joining the winners of OFFF Screen Challenge.. Expect a few video interviews on the next few days, from Sagmeister to James Paterson, along with the occasional Twittering, but go easy on the WiFi, ok ? (after all, we’re more that 3500 OFFFers).
Let’s fail miserably. Let’s frail gracefully. Starting tomorrow, at OFFF.
