Filed under: binge drinking | Tags: teenage binge drinking, the drinking nightmare film competition
In a new effort to tackle the teenage binge drinking problem – The Drinking Nightmare Short Film Competition is giving film-making hopefuls the opportunity to tap into their creativity and join the effort. The main feature is “How would you warn young Aussies about the dangers of binge drinking?” Simply make a movie for your chance to win $10,000 in cash and have your baby screen on MTV. Check it out here
Filed under: men's health | Tags: Adam Garone, ernst & young, movember, social entrepreneur
Well it’s that time of year again . . .Some of the country’s most innovative and visionary entrepreneurs were celebrated on Thursday 27 November at the 2008 Entrepreneur Of The Year awards. A panel of 11 independent judges had the difficult task of deciding the five category winners out of 25 national finalists from around Australia. The category winners chosen were a diverse group of business leaders.
Of most interest to us at Brainfruits is the Entrepreneur of the Year in the Social (marketing) category which went to Adam Garone of the The Movember Foundation.
Adam, a former Australian Army Captain, Melbourne Business School graduate and e-commerce project 
manager risked everything he had financially to launch the charity. Adam felt he was at an age where he wanted to give something back through a charity. He had made small donations before but found this largely unsatisfying.
The idea behind the ‘Movember’ concept is highly original; to resurrect the moustache, or ‘Mo’, as the ‘pink ribbon’ to raise awareness and funding for men’s health. All proceeds raised are donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyondblue, the national depression initiative. Prior to Movember, no one had successfully marketed prostate cancer as a campaign initiative, with the majority of focus on women’s health causes, primarily breast cancer. Statistically as many men in Australia die from prostate cancer as women die from breast cancer.
The Movember Foundation promotes the philosophy that “Every Mo Bro counts”. In Australia, the number of ‘Mo Bros’ has grown from 30 in 2003 to 100,000 in 2007, with over $15 million raised to date. In 2007, global expansion of Movember raised over A$5.5 million with 37,000 men in other countries participating.
In four short years, Movember, has quickly become a global initiative, relying on the smart use of new technology, innovative marketing and low cost-to-funding rations to deliver tangible outcomes for men’s health causes.
You can check out the website here
Filed under: politics, voting | Tags: barack obama, cause-related, Get the vote out, john mccain, Moveon.org, political activism, rock the vote, social marketing, social media marketing, us election, USA, voting
I think I caused Obama to lose the election...
MORE than six million people have so far been emailed a spoof video blaming them for electing Republican John McCain as the next President of the United States.
The video is going out to more than 30 new people per second as a direct and personal reminder to them to vote in next Tuesday’s Presidential election.
The spoof video is set after the election and “reveals” that Democratic candidate Barack Obama has lost by just one vote. The ‘missing’ voter is the person receiving the personalised video!
In the spoof news-style video, the missing voter’s name is blazed across headlines in the New York Times, is personally thanked by George W. Bush and is castigated by irate US citizens (including an hilariously foul-mouthed grandmother, pictured above) and a lonely goat herd who now fears his flock is about to be bombed by ‘President McCain’.
The video is witty, irreverent and extremely well done – and it may have the desired effect in helping to Get Out The Vote as well as becoming a global hit.
Research shows that this kind of social “nudging” is extremely effective. The organisers are aiming to reach 10 million people before Election Day in the USA – but look set to easily reach their target.
“This video does both—with a smile (or a smirk, in some cases).
“It takes just seconds to send, and it could be the thing that actually pushes a friend of yours to the polls.”
Filed under: politics, voting | Tags: America, barack obama, campaign, john mccain, NYC, social marketing, us election, USA, voting
thecoolhunter.net
It’s just days away from one of the most anticipated US federal elections in history and both sides are plowing into spin overdrive. Which is why we love this amazing original advertisement that has succeeded in doing what most politicians don’t – cut through the crap in a single succinct moment.
Created by creative director – Tor Myhren from Grey NYC, the posters slice through the race issue between candidates – acknowledging that much of this campaign has predictably but stupidly been re-cast as a battle between black and white. Myhren’s powerful imagery rightly implies that this is all just distraction, seeking to refocus our attention onto what really matters – the issues.
Even before the results are in, the posters have become collectors items, with New Yorkers unable to help themselves from swiping them off the streets. - Lisa Evans
Story taken from thecoolhunter.net
Filed under: Big brand examples | Tags: bee boy, cause-related, haagen dazs, help the honey bee, ice-cream, save the honey boy, social marketing, social media marketing
Social marketing was “born” as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes and behaviors.
Social marketing, often combines education and promotional communication to motivate healthy behavior and lower risks associated with negative behaviours or reinforce positive behaviours. In the past social marketing told us to wear seatbelts, to look after the planet, to look after our health, to stop smoking, care for endangered animals and to start recycling.
In the age of web 2.0, we’re also seeing the introduction of social media marketing [or some just say social marketing for short].
Social Media Marketing (SMM) combines the goals of marketing with social media sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Youtube and many others. The idea being that if you get to know your target well, understand where they hang out online & how they connect, you have a much greater chance of creating a lasting connection with them.
Rigid professional “advertising” goes out the window in favour of a more personal disruptive communication that feels one-to-one. It’s the lack of formality which helps the viewer feel connected to the communication, the cause and others who are also engaged in the issue.
Now whilst ‘Social Media Marketing’ is not the same as the more traditional ‘Social Marketing’ both disciplines share similar characteristics. Mostly they’re looking to connect with people on a personal level, to move beyond one way communication to stimulate dialogue and a greater level of involvement and engagement.
This latest ditty we’ve found from Haagen Dazs is an absolute ripper and a great example of a brand using ’social media marketing’ techniques for a social marketing cause. It’s part of their Help the Honey Bees campaign and is worth a look.
Social marketing and Social Media Marketing . . Isn’t it nice when they play together?
Filed under: cancer | Tags: ABC, Australia, cancer, Duncan Watts, kevin bacon, promotion, six degrees of kevin bacon, six degrees of separation, social marketing
Many of you may have heard about the trivia game ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon‘. It’s based on the concept of the small world phenomenon and rests on the assumption that any actor can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon. The game requires a group of players to try to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible. The game was especially popular on college campuses in the early 1990s. In 2007, Bacon started a charitable organization named SixDegrees.org.Even if you haven’t heard of ‘Six degrees of Kevin Bacon’, we’re sure you’ve probably heard of ‘Six degrees of Separation’, the idea that everyone in the world can be connected in just a few steps. But what if those steps don’t just relate to people but also to viruses, neurons, proteins and even to fashion trends? What if this ’six degrees of separation’ allowed us an insight into something at the core of Nature?
Filed under: HIV, sexual health | Tags: education, Prevention, sexual health, STD, STI
Study Reveals Many Infections Undetected by Current Protocol
| Within the past four years, physicians and researchers in U.S. cities with have noticed a marked increase in certain sexually-transmitted diseases, like syphilis and gonorrhea, among gay men. A recent study by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates a two-headed problem in preventing the spread of STDs among the gay population:
1) fewer gay men are going in for testing, 2) the tests to detect the presence of STDs do not always find the infections. In the twenty-five years since the AIDS crisis began, the gay male population in the U.S. has been the target of aggressive public-health and STD-prevention campaigns. By most accounts, these efforts have been successful in drastically decreasing the number of new HIV diagnoses among gay white men and fostering patients’ sense of responsibility for their own health. Since approximately 2004, however, doctors and journalists in the gay press have noticed a backlash against the stringent rules of safer sex, especially among young gay white men—the very population that enjoyed enormous reductions in new infections in the past decade. Article taken from here |
Filed under: HIV, sexual health | Tags: HIV, Prevention, sexual health, STD, STI, syphilis
San Francisco experienced a sharp rise in early syphilis between 1999 and 2002, with the number of cases rising from 44 to 494 per year. Rates continued to rise through 2004. Since 1999, most syphilis cases have been among men who identified as gay or bisexual (88%), were white (60%), and were infected with HIV (61%) . In June 2002, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), STD Prevention and Control Services launched a social marketing campaign, called Healthy Penis, designed to increase syphilis testing and awareness among gay and bisexual men.
Filed under: HIV | Tags: aids, canada, education, hiv prevention, promotion, social marketing
A quick look at an old campaign from Canada which addresses the issue of positive reinforcement amongst gay men when it comes to safe sex.
“Studies show that gay men fall into three groups: those who take HIV risks frequently, very rarely, and not at all. Three out of four gay men are in the latter two groups – they choose safety,” explains epidemiologist Dr. Tom Lampinen of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV “The really exciting news involves that second kind of guy, the one who takes HIV risks rarely. Real power and potential rests with him. If he can commit to no HIV risk for just one to two years, he will force a decline in new infections.”
The humorous “Gay Men Play Safe” campaign was created to validate and support gay men’s safer sex practices while reinforcing the fact that sexual safety, including condom use, is a community norm. AIDS Vancouver and partner AIDS organizations from across the country worked with Rethink Advertising to create a new kind of HIV message that challenges the widely held perception that gay men suffer from condom-use fatigue and apathy.
“It’s time we recognize gay men for more than 20 years of practicing safer sex and using condoms,” says Phillip Banks, Director of HIV Prevention at AIDS Vancouver and national coordinator of the campaign. “It’s undeniable that gay men’s efforts in the early days of HIV had the greatest impact on reducing HIV infection rates. This campaign validates these efforts and encourages gay men to keep it up.”
According to Dr. Terry Trussler, Research Director at the Community Based Research Centre in Vancouver: “Surveys show that gay men are aware and concerned about the continuing threat to health posed by HIV. This campaign doesn’t threaten or blame gay men. Rather, it acknowledges that as a community, gay men continue to support HIV prevention.”
You can check out the rest of the campaign here
