Great work starts with the client. And that is the case with the Save Darfur Coalition’s “Portfolio,” a public service TV spot directed by Jake Scott of RSA for Greer Margolis Mitchell & Burns (GMMB), an ad agency/media firm specializing in major social issues and political campaigns.
“Portfolio” is featured in this week’s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery. The spot shows an investment broker telling his clients, a married couple, how great their investment portfolio is performing, particularly in the energy and technology sectors. The broker relates, “You took a bit of a hit in real estate but more than made up for it in genocide.” The couple is taken aback by this revelation and the spot ends with the disturbing question, “Is your mutual fund funding genocide?”
Dave Tobey, GMMB creative director, explains that the client was key to making this PSA a reality. “I remember one of my earliest meetings with this client and they told me that their mission was to put themselves out of business,” related Tobey. “That’s not traditionally what you’re looking for in an agency client but in this case it is truly what we all want. That immediately told me that their mission statement isn’t just a piece of paper. They are committed to this work and to ending this genocide in Darfur. To that end, the client is willing to push any appropriate button, pull any lever, talk to any appropriate audience to try to affect change.”
The initial thrust was to raise public awareness of the genocide. Today, said Tobey, the majority of Americans have a sense of what’s going on in Darfur. So the agency and client shifted their strategy to help encourage divestment in order to help shut off funding for the atrocities in Darfur.
Back in April, GMMB introduced a campaign targeting Fidelity Investments–not just to raise awareness about divestment, said Tobey, but to publicly shame Fidelity, which the Save Darfur Coalition had approached to explain to them the need to divest. Fidelity refused so GMMB created a campaign spanning TV, print and mobile billboards, primarily in Boston where Fidelity is headquartered.
In its TV commercial, GMMB had a Darfur refugee read a letter in which Fidelity, said Tobey, “rather coldly explained” its position. Fidelity then mounted an effort to keep the spot from airing and was fairly successful in that regard. Media outlets that originally agreed to run the ad ultimately didn’t. Still, GMMB was able to gain airtime on a few local TV stations.
Now “Portfolio” continues the divestiture strategy but with a slightly different wrinkle, directly targeting average investors. The spot marked the first time that GMMB had written a dialogue script and used actors in a commercial for the Save Darfur Coalition. Prior to that, the strategic approach was to tell the story through the minds and hearts of real people, primarily refugees. The agency and client didn’t feel it necessary or appropriate to script something and have actors perform when the actual reality of the situation is what needs to be conveyed.
But ultimately “Portfolio” was so simple, direct and true to the cause that GMMB and the client decided to commit to it. “Making this departure was somewhat of a risk,” observes Tobey. “But the people at the Save Darfur Coalition are not risk averse if they feel this will help affect change, and that’s a most admirable quality in a client.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More