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.
Oscar Nominees Gather For Cocktails, Dinner and The Annual Class Picture
Five days before the Academy Awards, nearly every nominee gathered for a cocktail reception, dinner and class picture shoot that served as an Oscars orientation.
The event Tuesday night at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures was a stand-in for the annual Oscars luncheon usually held about a month earlier but scrubbed because of the Southern California wildfires.
With the voting over and winners determined, contenders got chummy and the mood was cheerful. Best actress favorites Mikey Madison and Demi Moore hugged and chatted. So did best actor front-runners Timothée Chalamet and Adrien Brody.
"Everyone say Oscar nominee!" best actress nominee Cynthia Erivo shouted gleefully from the front row of the museum's David Geffen Theater, where the dozens of nominees sat for their group picture.
Clustered in front with Erivo were three best supporting actress nominees: her "Wicked" castmate Ariana Grande, Monica Barbaro of "A Complete Unknown" and Zoe Saldaña of "Emilia Perez" along with Madison, nominated for "Anora." The five women stood in a circle and talked happily together after the photo, and kept the conversation going as they descended the stairs together to dinner.
In the back of the theater, a trio of best actor nominees sat together: Sebastian Stan of "The Apprentice," Colman Domingo of "Sing Sing" and Brody, of "The Brutalist."
After the photo was taken, Academy President Janet Yang gave the orientation presentation, reminding everyone that the 97th Academy Awards will be held Sunday.
She greeted first-time nominees and acknowledged there were also some with more than one.
Denis Villeneuve, director of "Dune: Part 2" and a four-time nominee, raised his hand. Sixteen-time best original song nominee... Read More