Multicultural, Multilingual Campaign To Be One Of Y2K's Largest.
A new player in the advertising game is expected to be one of the largest single media buyers in the nation during the first half of 2000—and it isn’t an e-tailer or a dot-com company. It’s the U.S. government’s Census Bureau.
Last month, the Census Bureau unveiled its $163 million multicultural, multilingual paid ad campaign promoting its Census 2000—its first in the history of the census, and perhaps one of the most comprehensive campaigns ever produced. Spearheaded by Young & Rubicam (Y&R), New York, the national campaign, which spans TV, print, radio, Internet and outdoor advertising, reflected the work of five additional ad agencies whose specialties lie in targeting specific cultural groups. The Bravo Group, New York, headed up the campaign’s Hispanic advertising; the Chisholm-Mingo Group, New York, handled the campaign’s African-American efforts; Albuquerque-based G&G Advertising handled Native American marketing; Y&R Puerto Rico created the Puerto Rican campaign; and New York-based Kang & Lee headed Asian/Pacific advertising, as well as ads aimed at the Russian, Polish and Arabic communities. The result was a campaign that was translated into a total of 18 languages.
"We have to aim at everybody," said Y&R creative director Harold Kaplan. "I don’t know if anything like this, that’s really integrated and cross-cultural, has ever been done before. That in itself is amazing—all these agencies and all these cultures. What other campaign reaches everybody in the United States?"
For instance, Kang & Lee’s spot work was paired with as many as 23 different voiceovers to reflect different dialects and languages within the Asian/ Pacific community.
Kaplan related that two major challenges accompanied the campaign. First was maintaining a certain uniformity. "We wanted to speak with one voice, to make sure everyone is doing the same strategy, because if [one agency] did something differently, it wouldn’t be as powerful," he said. Second was the amount of time spent on audience testing. "Everything had to be tested, retested and tested again," said the creative director. "We had to have the research data to back up the [effectiveness of the] campaign."
The impetus for the census initiative was a steady decline in households’ mail-in response rates, which fell from 78% in 1970 to 65% in 1990. The Census Bureau predicted a response rate of 61% in 2000—leaving an estimated 46 million residences to be counted door-to-door—had it not chartered the ad campaign.
Y&R director of broadcast production Ken Yagoda said the campaign’s strength lies in the information it provides. "I’ve lived through a number of censuses," he said. "But I never came away from any piece of information understanding the impact of filling out that form. [The campaign] conveys information that is so socially relevant … in a way that makes the audience want to make some impact."
Most notably, the campaign reveals that census figures are used to determine how $185 billion in federal funds are allocated among public services such as education, transportation and health care. The ads feature variations on the tag: "This is your future. Don’t leave it blank."
A dozen TV spots reviewed by SHOOT take a variety of approaches to demonstrate the need for people to complete their census forms. Four ads created by Y&R, which were directed by Jeff Preiss of bicoastal Epoch Films, are "Icons," "Emergency Equipment," "Daycare" and "Overcrowded School." The last consists of scenes inside an average elementary school. Over the course of the ad, text appears on screen revealing that, for instance, the school was "Built to hold 875" but that it "Now holds 1,145." At the end, the footage shows a broom closet that’s "built to hold 4 mops, 6 buckets, 1 floor waxer." The door then opens, revealing that the space has been turned into a makeshift classroom.
The Y&R broadcast creative team included of Kaplan; executive creative director Jim Ferguson; senior VP/art director Paul Jervis; and senior VP/executive producer JoAnne McShane.
Three Spanish-language ads via Bravo are "Baby," "Don José" and "Without Fear." Bravo’s creative team consisted of VP/executive creative director Federico Traeger; VP/creative director Concepcion Funica; senior art director Carlos Lopez; senior copywriter Mark Gonzalez; and producers Allan Rivera and Laura Marino.
Directed by Edward James Olmos and produced by Carbó Films, Santa Monica, "Without Fear" shows various people at work, from a fisherman to a barber, a nurse to a teacher. Olmos also provided the voiceover for the ad, and explained that loosely translated, the ad says: "We’re not afraid to work. We’re not afraid of sweat. We’re not afraid of what life has to give us. Why should we be afraid of being counted?" The purpose is to inform people that providing census information is safe and that it will not be released to other government agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service or the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Known for his humanitarian efforts, Olmos described the assignment as "probably the single-most important project I’ve worked on in my life. It is important, for a multitude of reasons, to understand how many cultures represent this country, and how many people there are."
"Don José" was directed by Luis Soto of The Soto Company, Hollywood, while "Baby" was helmed by Orlando Leal of Hollywood-based Moving Image.
The Hispanic effort was fortified by a pair of spots created by Y&R Puerto Rico. The agency team consisted of creative director Sylvia Soler; copywriter Maria Viglucci; art director Lourdes Berros; and producer Javier Nazario. "Musical Chairs" was directed by Fernando Vallejo of No Guns Pictures, Venice, Calif. and Buenos Aires, which is a division of Santa Monica-based Cognito Films. "Screen" was directed by Harry Dorrington and produced by R/GA, New York, which is scheduled to close its doors next month (SHOOT, 11/26/99, p. 1). At press time, Dorrington was exploring his production company options.
Dorrington related that "Screen" features effects work achieved with proprietary software developed by R/GA. In the ad, footage of a San Juan landscape is treated to appear like the culmination of hundreds and thousands of little dots. "The point of the script is that by filling out census forms, society gets buildings and such," the director said. "But if you don’t, you end up with nothing. At [the end of the ad] the imagery gets blown away as if it’s made up of sand, and you end up with nothing. I thought it was quite a simple idea, and it works quite well."
Director Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, Calif., helmed four ads targeting Native Americans via G&G: "Gathering," "Children of the Earth," "Running" and "Generations." Agency president Michael Gray created the ads.
"Children of the Earth" is a series of close-ups of children in both rural and urban settings. The footage is shot in 1 to 1.85 ratio, as is "Gathering." That ad captures Native Americans of different ages in both traditional ceremonial dress and contemporary clothing, standing in a circular formation on what appears to be a reservation. Both ads stress that census information will be used to provide for future generations.
Three ads from the Chisholm-Mingo Group are "Anthem," "Census 2000" and "Enumerator." The agency team consisted of art director David Wiseltier; copywriters Judith Barnett and Alicia Harris; and producers Scott Nichols and Nettie Marquez. "Anthem" was directed by Noble Jones, and produced by Celsius Films, New York. (Jones has since moved over to Boomerang Pictures, New York.) The ad opens with images of a young girl and her family in the city, and then segues to other familial images set on a farm. It also shows people in a job training center, a school and in health care facilities. Ernest Dickerson of BNJ Productions, New York, directed "Census 2000" and "Enumerator."
Kang & Lee’s campaign was headed by creative directors Young Kim, Makoto Endo and Guinam Lee. Jeff Kaumeyer directed, and Culver City, Calif.-basedminus 30 Films produced "Voice" and "Wishes." (Kaumeyer has since shifted over to Boxer Films, Los Angeles.) "Wishes" moves from a cityscape to footage of apartment complexes, then to a suburban sprawl, and eventually inside a single house, where an Indian family is seen filling out a Census 2000 form. The voiceover explains, "If we don’t fill it out, we get nothing." Kang & Lee’s "Emerging Markets" ad work—aimed at the Russian, Polish and Arabic communities—was directed by Jan Peterson of Redtree Productions, Boston and New York.
Kaplan said the campaign benefited from the input of everyone involved. "It’s such a monumental project, and everyone along the line had a thought or an idea. It was wonderful, the way that everyone contributed."
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More