I Want You! - A Teaching Play as Soap Opera

Video of the Week

A teaching play in dramaturgy is this video from Peru - and also the right medium, a soap opera:

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Soap operas are in Latin America - and in India - the people's drug #1 on TV, and you might guess the viewer's gender ratio.

This NonProfit TV spot focuses exactly on this format - and then it uses a double effect for tension, which is curiosity due to the irritation and, of course, the good old climax:

1. All soap opera viewers want to know one thing in particular: Will they be together in the end? Or not? The whole scene here heads for Laura's YES or NO..
2. From that moment on, where our hero starts to put hard truths into flowery words, we all ask ourselves: Why? Where is this going? And of course we'll wait until the very end. 

And the answer is also perfectly timed. At the height of tension. The video stops exactly at that moment, where we expect Laura's response. And delivers the message: A phone number.

Target audience: FEMALE TV watchers, surely dozens of them, which should know exactly this emergency number of the Flora Tristán Women's Centre in Lima.

Because surprisingly, 14 of the 25 countries with the highest violence against women are not in the Arab world, but in Latin America. (International Policy Digest).

Lesson: Not only the story, but also the telling format has to match the target audience! This is actually a truism, but I can only marvel about the fact that it's overseen over and over again...

Women, Men - and the small difference.

Video of the week

Small but mighty video Twitter campaign from Belgium about the "wage gap" between men and women - of a very special figure:

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Equal Pay Day is a joint action of several organizations for women's rights, which launched the video with the hashtag #paymelikeaman on Twitter on March 8th, 2016 - the International Women's Day.

That it's more than necessary you can see in the comments below the video. But I particularly liked the smart combination of the transgender topic. A man, who REALLY experienced how it feels like being a woman. This is simply clever and authentic since it's not a "social experiment" - he really knows what she is talking about. 

Lions love jeans for breakfast

Video of the week

A charity auction in favor of a good cause...it's an old hat, right? Not, if you do it like this:

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Zoos are creative if it's about fundraising - this we know since the Zoo's campaign in New York "MSack employees for a good cause".
This ZOO JEANS campaign of the Kamine Zoo in Hitachi, Japan from 2014 also stands in good tradition.

Flea market, baking pies, sponsored run - the list goes on and on if it's about fundraising combined with work effort. However, the campaign also had an enormous impact on public, which exceeds the pure - rather modest - amount of the fundraising many times over the actual value. And THAT is what I think is a success.

It's an approach of 360°, a whole thinking process: to bring fundraising AND marketing AND awareness together in just one auction. It was successful by the creative idea itself, they could also have sold simple tiger post cards..but, well, why must I suddenly yawn?
The here auctioned gadgets have besides the good cause also a certain coolness. This coolness made it very quickly to the print media and multiplying websites and blogs, from Japan to you, my friends, far far away.

And this is what gets off the campaign. I think that it's very inspiring.

Knick-knacks only good for Facebook

Video of the week

Today it's not just a video, but especially an idea:

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Many non-profit and charity organisations have one problem, or to be more precise:
They have Facebook!
And thereby the difficult question comes up: WHAT SHOULD WE POST over a period of seven days?

And so it happens that many NGO's just write about themselves. And are wondering then about the small range. Guys, do you read a blog which only consists of selfies?

Facebook consists to 99% of third party content! What appears important, will be shared. And then you talk about it with people, which are important to you. This is how Facebook works. It's the same thing in real life. - And NGO's / non-profits can do it exactly like that - just try it out. The NGO's I know and which are doing this, too, achieve way more click rates and get much more attention. There is enough content, every day we are being flooded by a whole bunch - even more, than the stuff which ends up in boxes up in the attic - and mostly they are way more interesting, since it went through many filters already - else it wouldn't get to us. Pick something. Facebook is not your press newsletter.

By the way, the dutch video producer Dave Hakkens offered EXPLICITLY for his Story-Hopper Productionen to be shared. I read that there are great clips, maybe also for your NGO.

You're welcome.  

And I personally will pin his picture to the wall now: 

Plan B - Parents

Video of the week

Why plan B? Here the closure. Although plan C can also shine:

Direct link to the video

So, to all loving video creators for the good cause of you, again we have a classic of the dramaturgy in front of us. The golden rule of the three good things / climax /  dramaturgical turn and the healthy humor - everything is there.
Everything was done well.

But video of the week it became for another reason: Because it transmits the perfect threshold motivation.

Threshold motivation

Over and over again I jaw to my customers: A video is NOT an all-round tool, not for marketing nor for fundraising. It has advantages, but it's solely only a brick. Hello, beautiful's - a video like that only runs 1 to 2 minutes. It can be spread over a million times without any additional charges, but it only reaches the single viewer exactly ONCE, and 60 seconds should get him to become one of your members or to make a donation? Such nonsense.

The strength of videos are: videos can take people over a threshold - e.g. to click on the button "read more" or to dare the step to make contact. For this, they are perfect because they can transport emotions very well - or cause reactions to them.

Two emotions - oh - in my chest!

Here the target group are parents which are thinking about adoption. They are standing on the springboard, but they don't dare to jump. Two emotions determine their position: 1) They would love to be parents - because the love of a child can't be compared with anything else. - and 2) They are worried because they want to be good parents. And who can accomplish this? Or who knows it in advance?

The video aims for both emotions. 1) It calms fears - "you don't have to be perfect" - and 2.) it strengthens the motivation: "a moment like this NEEDS parental assistance! For this, you will be loved."

A good NonProfit video is always a good threshold video.

Ghosts on the School Toilet

Video of the week

No, it's not about the Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter. It's way more frightening!
A campaign from Quebec (switch "cc" on for subtitles):

Direct link of the video
Direct link of the original in french

Some things are only possible to achieve with modern technology. Those 3D Monitors, for example, are available on the market for affordable prices since only recently. The state SAAC Quebec produced several creative campaigns for road safety, but this one tops them all.

To use these new technologies in a creative way is almost a guarantor for attention. Just because something like this hasn't been there before. You could also have hired actors like in the commercial mirror trick of a Brazillian broadcaster: The missing reflection:

But this can not be scaled up so easily. While installing several 3D-monitors is not a big problem.
Great campaign.

Awareness test

Video of the week

Welcome back in 2016. Are you awake? Yes? No? Well, ...let's do a little awareness test:

Direct to the video

What a great NonProfit Video for road safety. Outstanding for three reasons:

1. Gamification: 

Be honest: That was fun, no? And that's pretty much the same for everyone. Even for your target audience. An element of game in NonProfit videos and campaigns - I would like to see more of this (and it brings me to an idea)

2. Low budget, high impact

This video consists of one shot - cam on, cam off. The costume of the bear, honestly that was 40 $, not more. Okay, they used a good camera and did color grading - so it was a professional production. But the budget was for sure in the low bud area.

3. Surprise

Until the very end it is not clear to us what is at stake. We get a short "Oh yes" moment after realising the bear. Then we get a second surprise, the dramaturgical turn-around, when we understand the focus of the whole video: About street safety. Surprise your audience, this is the secret of interesting content.

Result: A viral success. Meanwhile, there are 21 million viewers since 2009: The statistics with continuously increasing graph clearly shows that not paid-ads but social sharing drive the distribution here.