Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 10:28AM NURU's ambitious goal is to end poverty one village at a time. This organization has a compelling story in its mission and in its founder, Jake Harriman, a one time soldier who has devoted his energies to saving the poor.
Monday, August 10, 2009 at 04:40PM Medecins Sans Frontieres (that's french for Doctors Without Borders) serves up an incredibly powerful new commercial using one simple locked off image of a hut in Africa. But listen to the piece and read the subtitles and you'll see the power of simplicty at work. Simple, albeit horrible stories like this one. Nothing fancy here, but the starkness of that hut and the lives of the children who you can hear, but not see, drive home the plight of all children that MSF helps in countries across the globe.
This spot is not for the feint hearted... the title cards tell a harrowing tale along with the raspy whines of the child. the rattling of machine guns and the explosions of bombs in the distance. It's compelling storytelling, plain and simple, which gets your attention.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 07:07PM The Smithsonian (museum) is making an interesting request for feedback on its future. The museum is asking for submissions - call it thought sharing or crowd sourcing - "as [the Smithsonian] begins to imagine [its] future." Perhaps this shows that a museum filled with bones, historical papers and planes can offer nimble thinking too. The new movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is also currently offering a nice spike to brand recognition. Not many museums can gather the critical mass to make an experiment like this work. We'll see how it fares. It's called the Smithsonian Voice Your Vision Project on YouTube.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 09:10PM Now this is smart PR for Malaria, for Twitter, for CNN and for Ashton Kucher. The piece is a follow-on to the competition between Kucher and CNN to get 1M followers on Twitter. The piece itself is simple and powerful. Great graphics, great music and NO announcer. The title cards were really well designed. This is a beautiful effort for a great CAUSE and everyone involved in this one was a winner. Sure wish I made it!