Creative Watch™ brings you two comparable awareness campaigns.

By Ben December 11th, 2007
In Fundraising · Stories

Addressing Aids awareness in teens is the BBC’s G.I. Jonny campaign. It seems the Beeb (and my mates over at the creative agency who made the site… and, ahem, my better half, who took the photos for the site’s characters) have tried to offer access to their messages through every conceivable medium; technological or communicative. There is an accompanying Facebook app., but the killer feature is the “Create Your G.I.” interactive Flash game on the site. Mostly slick, sometimes sick, the project has apparently generated a lot of clicks.

Another tasty Flash campaign is Dangerous Ground, which uses videos of Free-running and a portrait gallery of people not touching the ground, to raise awareness of landmines in Southeast Asia. Alright, the site’s pretty cool but it lacks information, interactivity, and it seems to speak to the same young audience as G.I. Jonny does.

Unless there is a new school craze for unexploded ordinance quietly spreading behind my back, I don’t think the latter campaign fits as well with its audience. Creativity should always be balanced against relevance. Not that I’ve anything against pretty pictures.

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Mat Morrison // Dec 12, 2007 at 4:39 pm

    The GI Johnny thing is very nicely written and produced. But (because it’s a BBC project) it’s using the dreadful RealPlayer as the off-site viewer and audio player. This isn’t really acceptable these days - it’s a complete hindrance.

    But not, perhaps, as much as the T&Cs:

    You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use gijonny.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any gijonny.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of gijonny.co.uk content requires the prior written permission of the BBC.

    What is this? The nineties?

    Spooky as it may be, the answer may actually be “Yes!”

    Take a look at that file extension in the address bar.

    http://www.gijonny.co.uk/index.shtml

    Wow. Server-side includes. That’s really quite old school.

    I suggest that this website has, in fact, been waiting since 1997 to get greenlighted.

  • 2 Dan O'Connor // Dec 13, 2007 at 12:21 am

    Because nothing stops the spread of STDs like an ill-conceived comedy character.

    I have an, ahem, contact at the BBC and he informs me that what Mr Morrison (late of this parish) so rightly calls the nineties scent of GI Johnny is down, almost entirely, to rights issues that are unique to the BBC within the industry. Basically, if it in any way involves actors, the BBC can’t/won’t let anyone make use of it. It’s why about 60% of the Beeb’s drama output never makes it to DVD.

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