Honest to goodness, there

[ronghui lu]

I think this is cool. Mind you I waved to my driver like Ford did :intello: :go:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...s-there-s-no-catch-with-this-ad-campaign?bn=1

Superboards perched high above congested roadways urge civility among motorists: “Give your fellow driver five fingers. Wave.” Transit shelters beckon passersby to take a load off their shoulders: “Don’t carry grudges. They weigh a ton.” And ads placed above urinals are playfully coy: “Real men are measured by the size of their generosity.”

It’s all part of an advertising campaign sweeping through Canada’s largest cities, encouraging people to be good, do good and encourage goodness everywhere.
So what’s the catch?

The multi-million dollar bilingual campaign dubbed People for Good isn’t out to sell you anything, its creators say. The idea behind the “social movement,” which lacks any recognizable branding, is to get people to donate a little generosity.
“What we’re trying to do is encourage a change in behaviour,” says executive chairman of Media Experts Mark Sherman, who created the campaign along with Toronto-based advertising agency, Zulu Alpha Kilo.

“The genesis of this was about wanting to do something positive and socially responsible and taking stock of what we do for a living. And what we do for a living is changing attitudes and behaviours.”
The campaign, in which the messages started to appear on billboards in late June, is under way in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax, and is slated to run until Aug. 21.

And if you’re not sold on any of the suggestions in the ads, you can visit their website for more feel-good ideas, or download the free People for Good iPhone app, which will provide ideas for good deeds that are specific to your location.

“We did this because it’s a positive thing. . . There was no ulterior motive,” says Zak Mroueh, president of Zulu Alpha Kilo, who oversaw the campaign’s creative aspect, using humorous, engaging and interactive messages to encourage simple acts such as cutting your neighbour’s lawn.
He notes that a media release about who was behind the campaign was released only about a week after its launch, largely because the blogosphere was abuzz with what corporation was responsible and what the ulterior motive was.

“The intent was just to use our collective ability to do something different, do something philanthropic,” Mroueh told the Star.
“This isn’t brought to you by any corporation. It’s really brought to you by this organization we’ve created. The purpose is to keep it non-commercial.”
Co-creator Sherman oversaw the media component of the campaign, reaching out to media companies to donate space for the ads.
Even Canadian actor and former teen heartthrob Jason Priestley, along with American singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb, donated time to do radio spots for the campaign.

In total, 60 media owners donated ad space or air time — one media organization donated $2.3 million, while several others donated more than $1 million.
Across the country, about 350 media entities, such as magazines, newspapers, radio stations, TV networks and websites, are participating in the campaign.
“The reaction we’ve had has been outstanding,” says Sherman, who won’t reveal how many millions of ad space was donated.

“I hope that aside from encouraging every Canadian to do a good deed or something nice, I hope we can also inspire other people in other industries, in other companies, to take stock of what their collective can do and try and use some of the energy… to do something socially responsible,” said Sherman.

“Each of us, and in each of our companies, we can kind of redeploy some of our commercial energy into a socially responsible direction. And my belief is that if we don’t, the trajectory of the world is not really very good.

“We can’t rely on government to change things, so it’s incumbent on each of us as individuals to try and do something. But there is power in the collective of a business, so if we can take our people and capture the power of that collective, important things can be achieved.”

 

[K M]

You are right Bubba. That is cool.