I watched this...



I really enjoy the animation. From a nonprofit management perspective though, I'm disappointed that it's missing a specific call to action. "Don't Let it All Unravel" is pretty vague. Say I watch the video and I'm all moved and upset and ready to do something... I get to the end and I read that phrase... then what? "Yeah, I'm NOT going to let it all unravel! Ok... how?" At least the video, if it's going to address a social issue, could advocate something specific any person could do, like donating money to an environmental organization, or insulating their home to save energy. That's marketing 101.

But wait, 'creatives' aren't supposed to be concerned about that stuff, right? It's really just about making cool work.

I looked up the organization that sponsored the video. Here's their mission statement:

"Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action. A for-profit company, Live Earth seeks to leverage the power of entertainment through integrated events, media, and the live experience to ignite a global movement aimed at solving the most critical environmental issues of our time."

Does this seem credible? Or will it just make for a bunch of bad, didactic forms of entertainment? Also, does it seem strange that Live Earth is a for-profit organization? It doesn't necessarily mean it's unethical, but it strikes me as a little strange.

evil, evil persuaders

Last night I finished reading a section of this book about how public relations works. Though the author qualifies the beginning of the section that public relations (which, by the way, is one of my majors) is not unethical per se, it seems to me that her hatred for the practice is thinly veiled.

I've found this sort of animosity applies to graphic designers as well. In fact, almost anybody who works in a field that involves either persuasion or communicates on a subconscious level seems to attract a certain level of distrust. It seems as though decades after Freud introduced the idea that humans have a subconscious and are not wholly in control of themselves, we are still rather uncomfortable with the idea. And we still like to dismiss Freud entirely as hopelessly sexist and ethnocentric, even though he was just as much a product of his sexist and ethnocentrist culture as we are of our culture, whatever that may be.

I think there's a difference between persuasive techniques and the message, or intent, they communicate. Are the persuasive techniques that aim to convince you to buy their company's SUV, different from the persuasive techniques used to get you to donate to a reputable nonprofit, or to give up smoking?

Is the fault of advertising encouraging a consumer mindset a problem within the individual advertisement, or the aggregate onslaught of all advertisements? If the latter, how do we hold individual advertisers accountable?