blogging social change

A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health has attributed 22 percent of the overall decline in youth smoking from 2000 to 2002 to the “truth campaign.”

Dr. Matthew Farrelly, one of the authors of the study, said that “previous research showed that truth(R) advertisements appealed to teens and changed their attitudes about smoking. Now we find these positive reactions have resulted in lower smoking rates, the most important outcome for public health.” The truth campaign is a massive anti-smoking campaign targeting young people in the US, funded by a major tobacco settlement which was used to establish the American Legacy Foundation.

Famous Players movie theatre chain dealt a huge blow to social change makers everywhere today when they not only agreed to pull a campaign from Canadians for Equal Marriage promoting same-sex marriage, but resolved to ban all “issue-driven advertising” in their 79-theatres nation-wide.

The ban was prompted by anti-gay-marriage groups who launched a boycott of theatres airing the spots, and several angry e-mails and calls. “We were starting to get e-mails that were threatening to our staff,” said Nuria Bronfman, the Toronto-based vice-president of corporate affairs for Famous Players.

I’m disappointed that Famous Players would cave to interest groups, and even more disappointed that they would do it in the face of threats. I encourage all of you who belive issue-based advertising is important to the promiting social change in Canada to call or write Nuria with the info below. They’ve had enough angry calls from ignorant people, so be nice.

Nuria Bronfman
Vice President, Corporate Affairs Famous Players
Phone: (416) 969-7053
E-mail: nbronfman@famousplayers.ca

Adbusters’ “Blackspot Sneaker” campaign ads have been banned (again), this time by MTV and FOX broadcasters for being “too jumpy.” We’re not exactly sure what that means, but it probably has nothing to do with Blackspot’s anti-corporate shoe fetish, or Adbusters’ history of going after all things corporate. Certainly not.

Social change comes in all sizes. Take this campaign, for example. Massive theatre chain AMC got together with Nokia, Verizon Wireless, and Best Buy to make a hilarious pre-movie “trailer” encouraging audience members to turn off their cellphones.

According to the campaign, silence is golden. Check out their excellent website, with a quirky bonus video (that’s sure to go viral) of a cheerleader being tossed through a basketball hoop.

A new campaign, “Be Seen, Be Screened,” was launched last week featuring a supermodel Heidi Klum asking us to help “make it fashionable to talk about colon cancer.”

The campaign is supported by the EIF’s National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance and sponsored by camara manufacturer Olympus. It was launched at the opening day press conference for Olympus Fashion Week to “educate Americans about the importance of medical screening in combating this country’s second-leading cancer killer.”

Courtesy of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), we give you the 7th annual “10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2004“. The Top 10, in no particular order: Uganda, the DRC, Columbia, Tuberculosis, Somalia, Chechnya, Burundi, North Korea, Ethiopia, Liberia.

This site is nothing less than completely odd. Esuvee.com is an American website featuring a strange mascot to educate the public about the dangers of SUVs … not their environmental impacts, we’re talking about under-inflated tires leading to rollovers. According to the site, “This yearlong national consumer education campaign aims to reduce incidences of sport utility vehicle rollovers, especially among young male drivers, who are more prone to these incidences.”

The site features the animal-like Esuvee Mascot, a “16-foot long, 11-foot wide and 10-foot tall ESUVEE … who will travel the country throughout the year.” I can only describe it as Sesame Street’s Snuffleupagus with headlights and a grill. Oh, and the oddest animal sound effects.

StopLandmines.org, affiliated with the United Nations’ Mine Action program, has launched a TV campaign that uses some serious shock value to drive home the horror of living every day with landmines. The ad shows families at a kids’ soccer game, asking “If there were landmines here, would you stand for them anywhere?”

(Editor’s Note: the spot contains simulated graphic imagery, and could be disturbing to some.)

“Eliminating racism. Empowering women.” The new campaign from the YWCA will work to fight rascism through high profile placement on MTV and BET. The ads show how women are exposed to demeaning and rascist messages every day, and are targeted at women ages 18-34.

The YWCA has posted their print, radio, and television spots online.