The Tip Jar – 7/3/07

by Nedra Weinreich | Jul 3, 2007 | Blog, Resources

This week’s Tip Jar is full of bicentennial quarters and an occasional $2 bill:

• I’ve been playing around with Facebook lately, though I think LinkedIn is much more useful as a grown-up. If you want to learn more on what all the fuss is about, take a look at the Beginner’s Guide to Facebook. Wondering whether your audience is more likely on Facebook or MySpace? Danah Boyd discusses how class plays into self-selection onto the various social networking sites: Facebook attracts the popular, “good kid” crowd, while MySpacers are more likely to be the socially ostracized kids who don’t quite fit into the popular cliques. As Anastasia says, it sounds like the makings of a John Hughes movie (“Pretty in Pink Flashing Pixels”?)

• Oxfam’s online advocacy campaign to help the Ethiopian farmers who grow coffee for Starbucks was a success, with 96,000 people participating in various ways. This campaign is a great case study for how to recruit and engage supporters via social media and email. I first learned of it through the Flickr petition in which people posted pictures of themselves holding a sign that said “I support Ethiopian coffee farmers.” But they also used YouTube, blogs, email networks, and more traditional methods like faxes, phone calls, postcards, an on-site protest and in-person visits to Starbucks. The resulting agreement will ensure that Ethiopian farmers get a fair share of the profits for their coffee.

• From the Communication Initiative comes an announcement of what sounds like a fascinating workshop called Sensing on Everyday Mobile Phones in Support of Participatory Research. The workshop will “focus on how mobile phones and other everyday devices can be employed as networkconnected, location-aware, human-in-the-loop sensors that enable participatory data collection, geotagged documentation, mapping and other case-making capabilities.” If anyone wants to send me to Sydney, I’d be happy to liveblog the session for you.

• If you are story-impaired like I am, you may be interested in the Center for Digital Storytelling’s Digital Storytelling Cookbook. The book helps people who want to mine stories from their own and others’ lives and personal media archives. You can download the first five chapters, which introduce how to find stories and tell them in a meaningful way. The rest of the book focuses on the technical aspects of digital media. Using stories to illustrate your points can be so effective, but the process of developing those stories is not always obvious. (via the same CommInit email as above)

• A new study found that teens engaging in web-based multi-player role-playing games are reaping benefits from opportunities to explore the world around them, albeit virtually. They can have conversations with people of different nationalities and races they would not normally come in contact with, they can become entrepreneurs with online businesses, they can experiment with their identities (aren’t virtual noserings so much better than the real thing?) and venture into interactions with members of the opposite sex. Sounds good, as long as the online time isn’t replacing hang-out time with real-life friends. (via MarketingVOX)

• A recent campaign from New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority in Australia takes a refreshing departure from the usual fear appeals to try to keep young men from speeding. It hits the perpetrators below the belt, with the tag line, “Speeding – No One Thinks Big of You” and hot girls wagging their pinkies in a gesture clearly meant to suggest that the speeders are trying to compensate for other inadequacies. I haven’t seen anyone here making this gesture before, so I wonder if it’s an Aussie-American cultural difference or a new thing. Watch the spot and tell me if you know.

• Speaking of fear appeals, Seth Godin writes about how some marketers use fear to sell their products. He gives social marketers a pass, saying that some items, like seatbelts, can’t be marketed without fear. I agree that fear appeals can be powerful when done right (though more often than not they backfire) but there are many other powerful values that could be tapped into to motivate safety-related behaviors (see item above).

• Knowing that the media would create a massive frenzy around the launch of the iPhone, a savvy nonprofit called Keep a Child Alive found a way to transfer some of that major media coverage to their own cause. Someone from the organization staked out the first spot in line at the Apple Store in Manhattan, thereby ensuring interviews with every media outlet around, and an open mic for their message. While they initially intended to auction just the iPhone to raise money for their organization, as a result of their widespread exposure they received a slew of additional items to auction off from celebrities and companies. This serves as a reminder to keep your eyes open for random opportunities to get your message out, which may net you more exposure than the rest of the marketing activities you’ve been planning for months.

• Happily, Sadly, Ironically, the CDC’s wonderful Verb yellowball campaign to get 9 to 13 year olds physically active, which was discontinued by Congress last year, took several top honors at the Cannes Lions advertising awards. Arc Worldwide, who created the campaign, won Gold for “Best Integrated Direct Campaign,” Silver for “Best Direct – Charities, Public Health & Safety and Public Awareness Messages” and Bronze for “Best Media – Charities, Public Health & Safety and Public Awareness Messages.” The campaign also won a Clio this year. It was a well-done campaign, and found to be effective in bringing about behavior change, so of course the obvious thing to do was to get rid of it. Bring back Verb!!!

• Last week I wrote about Google’s new Public Policy Blog. This week, they have another even more relevant blog launch, with the Google.org Blog. Google.org is the philanthropic arm of Google, which awards grants to organizations working in climate change, global public health, and economic development and poverty. Among the projects they have funded is a documentary film that will tell the story of the public health heroes on the front lines of polio vaccination and eradication. Sounds like a blockbuster to me.

I wish a very happy and safe 4th of July to my American readers, and a great Wednesday to everyone else.

Photo Credit: Tip Jar Dan

The Tip Jar – 6/23/07

by Nedra Weinreich | Jun 23, 2007 | Blog, Resources

• I have mixed feelings about Israel’s latest anti-drug commercial, which features an Israeli teen saying goodbye to his family in a video styled after a suicide bomber’s last testament. It’s certainly shocking and would grab attention, but I haven’t decided whether it’s in poor taste or an effective approach. I would love to know whether they tested it with teens. Its in-your-face aesthetic is nearly diametrically opposite of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy’s current campaign (in which a cartoon dog tells its pot-smoking owner “You disappoint me.”) In any case, it will definitely get people talking. What do you think, Israeli readers?
  

• The New York Times had a fascinating slideshow with photos of people next to pictures of their online avatars. My favorite was this man boy who is hooked up to various medical devices with his very sleek and strong armored Star Wars Galaxies avatar. It’s just another reminder of how freeing virtual worlds can be for people with disabilities, who can have superhuman abilities and still be no different from everyone else online.

• Vigilante bike activists in Toronto have taken matters into their own hands, with the city two years behind schedule in installing bike lanes on busy streets. Armed with hot pink spray paint, the Other Urban Repair Squad is painting in its own ad hoc bike lanes around the city, which the city then removes. The transportation department claims it will complete 30 km of the 1,000 km bicycle network planned by the end of the year, but in the meantime why don’t they just work with these activist groups to get it done quickly and efficiently?

• Nokia and Vodafone have launched a wiki-based website for NGOs to share ideas on how to use mobile communications for social change. The site, www.shareideas.org, includes case studies and how-to’s that can be expanded by other organizations over time.

• There’s a lot of social marketing going on down under in Australia and New Zealand. The New Zealand Herald ran a thoughtful story on social marketing, calling us “behavior engineers.” Sounds nice and scientific – maybe I’ll put that on my business card.

• Via MarketingVox, Google just launched a public policy blog, which will cover US legislation and regulation issues related to its business. Their intention is to open a window into their policy positions and advocacy strategies to get input and ideas from their users. Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s director of public policy and government affairs, says they want to do public policy advocacy “in a Googley way.” It will be interesting to see whether other companies follow suit to make their lobbying activities more transparent. Or should I say “Googley”?

• New York City will be trying a new approach to bring residents out of poverty — bribing them. Piloting a program that has been used effectively in countries like Brazil and Mexico, poor residents will be rewarded with cash for engaging in good behaviors. For example, possible rewards include $25 for attending parent-teacher conferences, $25 per month for a child who maintains a 95 percent school attendance record, $400 for graduating high school, $100 for each family member who sees the dentist every six months and $150 a month for adults who work full time. While it makes sense to use the incentive that will best get people to act, it goes against everything I’ve learned as a parent about the effectiveness of bribes. If the external rewards stop coming, will people continue their positive behavior, or will the program have to go on indefinitely? And if people continue to be paid for years and years, is that okay and worth it if we get the behaviors we want from them?

• Craig Lefebvre reports from the Social Marketing in Public Health conference in Clearwater Beach, FL, including sharing the slides from his presentation on mobile marketing. There are a couple more social marketing conferences coming up. At the end of August, I’ll be speaking on a panel at the CDC’s first National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. And in September, the UK’s National Social Marketing Centre will be offering its second National Social Marketing Conference in Oxford.

• Finally, I just wanted to share my favorite new online tool. Jott is a free service that lets you call a number from your mobile phone, leave a voice message, and have it transcribed and sent to your own or someone else’s e-mail. I have it preprogrammed in my cell phone, so whenever I’m driving and suddenly remember something for my to-do list or have a flash of brilliance, I can just leave myself a message and have it waiting in my email when I return to my computer. It’s a lot safer than fishing around for a pen and paper to write myself a note in the car. (Sorry, it’s only in the US and Canada now.)

Photo Credit: miss pupik