This is part 2 of a series on the history of communication efforts focused on public health/health education. Part 1 of the series looked at ads from the middle of last century. This is a guest blog post written by Marc van Gurp of the Osocio blog.
Disclaimer: Example videos 1 and 7 both contain episodes of nudity – we’re all grown, these videos do excellent jobs of getting the points across.
I lost my YouTube account last year after publishing a video showing a pole dancer who lost one breast because of breast cancer. Recently I heard about a photo showing a 13 year old Romanian child smoking a cigarette. The photo was rejected from Flickr. The first example was made in Britain, the second one from a Dutch photographer.
Regional differences in visual communication surprises me every day when doing research for my website about social advertising. Trying to overgeneralize the differences gives this spectrum -
North America: communication is based on spoken culture; copy is dominant.
Latin America: powerful use of visuals, often exaggerated; very masculine.
Europe: design is leading; sometimes to arty; “shockvertising”; search for boundaries.
Asia: very visual; the power to tell a story with visual metaphors.
Now that we’re all connected worldwide it is expected that these communication languages are melting into one new way to reach a target audience. Of course regional differences will exist but become less important. Besides that, campaigns aren’t judged anymore by the meant target audiences only, but also by others. On the Web everybody has an opinion and that can’t be ignored.
What does this mean for my work in the Social Health niche you ask? I admit I don’t have a clue how the forthcoming global communication language will look like. Within ten years we will know more. Until then it is important to look across borders and to experiment. The way to the new era is slippery because it’s wet. When using the proper techniques, often described here at Pulse & Signal, you will have thousands ways to evolve.
You are lucky working in the Health area. Health is by definition border-less. The spectrum of topics is enormous.
Now it’s your turn. Below are some examples of Social Health ads from all over the world. I’m very curious about what you think about these different ways of bringing a message. Tell me what you think can be the new global language in Social Health communication.
[example 1]
Video from ABC [http://aabc.org.uk/], Against Breast Cancer, a charitable organisation based in Oxford Engeland that funds breast cancer research into long-term survival.
Agency: AMV BBDO [http://amvbbdo.co.uk/]
[example 2]
Photo from a Romanian kid [http://www.flickr.com/photos/maartend/1429385268/], rejected from Flickr for a few days.
Photographer: Maarten Dors (The Netherlands)
This video from AssociatedPress tells the story.
[example 3]
Award winning video from Ponle Corazón [http://www.ponle-corazon.org/], the Peruvian Cancer Foundation (2005)
Title: La magia de la solidaridad / The magic of Solidarity
Agency: Leo Burnett Lima
[example 4]
Video from silentmiaow (USA) [http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/], An autistic woman who “speaks” her language, then ours. She made one of the most impressing video’s I ever saw. Actually it’s all about communication. Good communication is speaking the right language, we advertising people can learn a lot from her.
“Far from being purposeless, the way that I move is an ongoing response to what is going around me. Ironically, the way that I move when responding to everything around me is described as being in a world of my own. Whereas if I interact with a much more limited set of responses and only react to a much more limited part of my surroundings, people claim that I am opening up to true interaction with the world.”
[example 5]
Campaign from Sweden from the Anorexi/Bulimi-Kontakt [http://www.abkontakt.se/].
The video was broadcasted at MTV Sweden
Agency: Grey Stockholm [http://www.grey.se/]
[example 6]
Boy: “Warden Uncle, how many colours are there?”
Warden Uncle: “Red, Blue, Yellow. Green…”
Boy: “What does green colour look like?”
Video is from the Eye Bank Association of India [http://www.ebai.org/].
Executive Creative Director: Raghu Bhat/Manish Bhatt
[example 7]
For many years now, Connie helps me with washing myself.
Connie became too expensive they say.
A stranger is helping me with washing myself now.
And the next time it’ll be another stranger.
What is the difference with getting undressed for the whole country?
Tagline: For human homecare
Video from the Dutch Socialist Party (SP)
[example 8]
Smoking kills more people than Adolf Hitler and Bin Laden ever did. That is the key message in this anti-smoking campaign from Brazil: Cigarro Mata Mais (Smoking kills more) [http://www.smokingkillsmore.org/]. Cigarettes are used as the medium to create both non-moving and moving images.
Agency: F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi [http://www.nazcasaatchi.com/]
PSA:
Video from the streetaction:
[example 9]
These video’s seems to be ‘old school’ but in a country (China) that has punished AIDS activists for perceived political subversion and cultural heresy, these video’s are a remarkable development.
The campaign is made by the China Ministry of Health in conjunction with the United Nations.
[example 10]
This campaign from the American Social Health Association (ASHA) [http://www.ashastd.org/] shows the use of social media for a awareness campaign. The aim is to highlight the dangers of Chlamydia to young people during April 2008, which is STD Month (sexually transmitted diseases).
Agency: Duval Guillaume New York [http://www.duvalguillaume.com/]
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
What a great collaboration of work! Marc does amazing work with Osocio! I enjoyed learning more about how these issues are perceived in the various countries. It brings up a good discussion about the concept of global branding. Coke, McDonalds, etc….are ‘global’ brands so to speak, but how they are perceived/marketed may change based on the country. This is bringing me back to a roundtable discussion we had in one of my graduate courses.
I love this concept being presented in the public health/social change world. I think posts like this help, because they illustrate and provide viewpoints that many of us can’t travel or discover first-hand.
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