In William Steig’s children’s book and on the big screen, Shrek sets out to rescue the beautiful Princess Fiona from a fire-breathing dragon. Accompanying him on his mission is a wisecracking Donkey. Now the two have another mission–to help kids combat childhood obesity–and that’s just what they’re doing in a new campaign created by GSD&M, Austin, and launched by the Ad Council, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and DreamWorks. The PSAs complement the current “Can your food do that?” PSAs, which promote the benefits of eating healthy foods.
The new PSAs, which have been produced in English and Spanish, open with Donkey urging kids to put down their video games and shut off their TVs and “Get up and be a playah.” “Let’s run, have fun,” he raps as he takes kids to a jungle gym where other Shrek characters like Fiona are dancing and playing. Shrek himself appears and adds his own words of wisdom: Get up and play an hour a day. Then Donkey directs kids to www.smallstep.gov, to find cool play activities. But he reminds them not to stay too long. The Cannery, a West Coast online development firm, designed the site.
“We’ve been working with the DHHS since 2004 on a larger initiative focusing on obesity prevention with messages to both parents and children about the importance of good nutrition and exercise. The media has been just incredibly generous from a donated media perspective,” said Heidi Arthur, senior VP of campaigns at the Ad Council. “We’ve had more than $270 million donated against these messages. And then we got a call from DreamWorks saying that they would be interested in allowing us to use some of their characters from Shrek to support healthy lifestyles.”
So she showed them the work the Ad Council had been doing with DHHS and the DreamWorks’ team was very excited and open to whatever type of messaging would help push the needle further and faster. When this opportunity presented itself Arthur said the Ad Council realized it wasn’t doing anything solely focused on physical activity targeted at kids and thought the play message made perfect sense here since the whole notion of physical activity is a tough one to get across to kids.
Arthur explained that research showed parents feel overwhelmed by the thought of joining formal gym programs and carving out all of this time during the day and kids likewise are busy. Plus a lot of schools don’t have physical education opportunities, and the whole notion of formalized sports can be overwhelming and daunting and not necessarily available to all kids, especially at-risk kids.
“We had done a lot of qualitative and quantitative research to get a better understanding of how to frame physical activity. Reframing physical activity as play got people to think about it differently. It seemed like it was doable, fun,” Arthur said.
“It became something that was easy to fit into their lives and something parents and kids can do together. We thought how relevant Shrek and his friends are to kids and how they have such a positive, fun connotation in general that the marriage of those two messages was made in heaven.”
To execute those messages the creatives at GSD&M developed the song and the storyboards for the PSAs. They tapped director Thom Higgins of Green Dot Films, Santa Monica, Calif., because of his experience blending live action and animation. There were two shoots–one with cutouts of the DreamWorks’ characters placed into scenes and one with just the kids. The footage was then passed along to the DreamWorks’ animators who worked their magic.
Arthur pointed out the project went smoothly from beginning to end.
“Usually the challenge is getting the media to support it in a big way early on, and we saw just such a positive receptivity to the campaign that we were able to get media companies up front saying, ‘Yes I’ll support this.'”
Among them are Nickelodeon, Turner Broadcasting System and Univision Communications.
“That challenge was immediately removed because the community at large–advertising, marketing and media–really saw an opportunity to use the power of communication to get across a really good health message that kids can relate to,” she continued.
The “Be a Player” message will also be disseminated by companies in the Ad Council’s Coalition for Healthy Children, including PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, SUBWAY and Coca Cola.
“Having had the research done, it took away the challenge of coming up with the right message to put out there with these characters. Sometimes you can have a great opportunity but you are not quite sure if what you have to say is going to have an impact,” Arthur said.
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