See Change Happen

Gossip Girl converts bad press into good ads

There's nothing better than truth in advertising.

Gossip Girl was getting tons of negative press, so they decided to publicized it with an ad campaign and these wild postings.
Instead of trying to cover up the controversy or "tone down" the content of the show so that a wider audience would find it acceptable, they embraced the negative press and used critiques as direct quotes in the ads: e.g., "Very bad for you." "Every parent's nightmare" There is no better way to capture a teenager's interest than to show authority figures attacking the show. Even I want to watch it. Well done. (thanks to my cousin for pointing out the campaign)

 

Photoshop Art

If I still did ads for Adobe, I'd hire Henry Hadlow. I love these shots and his commentary on Photoshop.

It is all in how you say it - The Girl Effect

After a summer break, I'm finally back to blogging. Over the last couple of months, I've been working on a positioning for a non-profit client, which is always difficult. Non-profit's reliance on the public: donors, volunteers, governmental support, etc. often leaves the organization afraid of stepping on any toes. As a result, communications are bland or even worse, boring. When I saw the girleffect.org this morning, I loved how they were able to tell a story without using typical cliche imagery.

We've been overwhelmed with visualizations of the plight of Africa for years, seen the black and white photos, the flies, the famine. And all of that imagery resting in our brains is triggered by the narrative of this site. They don't need to remind of us the pictures because our brains make the connection for us.

So, I paid attention to the words, the story, and was engaged. Simple.

The only problem is, now what?