Bone Marrow Registry

If you haven't heard of OpenIDEO you need to check this site out. "OpenIDEO is a place where people design better, together for social good. It's an online platform for creative thinkers." This time around I went looking at one of the latest problems: "How might we increase the number of registered bone marrow donors to save more lives." 

To get started, I did my research and came back with some interesting results. It seems the reason why many people don't register in the bone marrow donor system is because of a lack of knowledge of the process that it takes. When people think of bone marrow transplant, they think of this painful experience of your spine being extracted or something, but it's just a swab of the cheek. The actual bone marrow transplant isn't often painful either. "The majority of transplants are now done through the donation of peripheral blood stem cells - which is essentially a painless removal of these kind of cells from the donor via intravenous extraction - and not directly from the bone marrow." The issue is public's lack awareness of the truth.


If I were to come up with a main idea that an ad agency or anyone could hold onto, it would be this: 
Becoming a registered member in the bone marrow registry and donating doesn't hurt.


Creative Ideas I will elaborate more on later are these:
A series of harmless scary monsters that can demonstrate that bone marrow procedures really aren't all that painful. 
A series of short viral videos that demonstrate acts that hurt way more than swabbing a cheek. For example: getting slapped, punched, running into a pole, or falling off a skateboard. Thinking similar to failblog is one way of thinking about it. 

Working Backwards

This week I took an ad and worked backwards to create a brief for it.

Here's the video:

Here's My Brief:

Purina Dog Chow 

Creative Brief

What is the problem?

How do we promote Purina dog chow to every kind of dog lover? Currently, many people see trained dogs as “real” dogs.

Who is our target audience?

Dog lovers of every kind, especially with ones with little respect for trained dogs.

How do we want to connect?

We want to connect with a an inspiring viral video.

What do they currently think?

The trained dogs who eat purina dog chow are snotty and fake. Real dogs eat other brands. There is no human side to show dogs.

What do we know about our Target Audience?

Our target audience is very connected to their dogs and are see them as their best friend. There is also a disconnect between the different types of dog owners, but they have something in common--their respect for their canines.

How do we want out target audience to feel?

All mushy-gushy.

What is the single main idea?

Every dog is special.

Creative Considerations.

People who love their dogs will do anything for them.

Thirty-nine percent of U.S. households own at least one dog.

Twenty-one percent of owned dogs were adopted from an animal. shelter

The Battle Results

I also asked a very interesting question that got some amazing results. 

Question:  If Converse, Adidas, and Nike were savage warriors in a duel to the death, who would win and why?

So here are the top 18 reasons why Nike would win (and 3 why the others would)

1. Nikes now since the shoes just seem to be getting bigger and bigger!
2. Nike because converse is owned by nike. it'd be like a giant combo machine
3. Adidas, they have better athletic shoes :)
4. Hmm. Converse has the hipster points, Adidas has the European cool and Nike is a huge power in this country. I would have to go with Adidas, because of their history and strength (and variety of styles). Nike would die a horrible, uninspired death, and Converse would barely lose. Dying by function, but not style.
5. Adidas. Converse would be too busy smoking pot and watching cartoons, and Nike is too powerful for its own good to not have some inherent fatal flaw (like in Aladdin when Jafar became a genie and it only lasted like two seconds).
6. Adidas, they have a more fierce image than the rest.
7. Mutually assured destruction.
8. Nike because they're all about athletic performance.
9. Nike - they'd just do anything to win
10. Nike. They're just bad ass.
11. Converse. Mad swag.
12. They would tie because they would realize that they are all so awesome
13. Nike because he's the god of victory.
14. Nike, because they know that nothing matters except that you just do it
15. Nike because they can run fastest!
16. Nike would because it would gobble up all the other shoe companies and make one bug evil shoe making corporation that would kill/absorb all others that defy
17. Converse, of course, because they are so versatile and they have such a lengthy history that they would not be doomed to repeat it. Also they would be off putting to the others with their colors
18. Converse, because of the warriors, they are the most ancient and wise
19. Probably Nike, because they could run faster and jump higher, thus taking an advantage over the other shoes.
20. Nike because it has the most superpowers out of the 3.
21. cause its fucking nike

I never imagined the answers would be so creative. I didn't ask for creativity, people just did it. I think when people are given the right amount creativity to play with there is nothing to hold them back.

What's the deal with Converse?

So I recently carried out a survey about Converse shoes. I had an inclination that the reason people wear converse was because they go with everything. Through my research I actually proved myself wrong. I asked 6 questions and posted them on facebook for people to answer. When I got the results I made wordles of some of the answers. 

What word comes to mind when you see [Converse]:
People see Converse as something for the younger generation and yet still Classic. Currently Converse has gone for the "We are for everyone" attitude and have been around forever. Looking at the results, it's interesting to see that the two most answered words were school and classic. Maybe Converse should create a campaign pushing for a completely new image that is a hybrid between the two. Of course, staying from "Old School" that is.

Question: Would you recommend Converse All-Stars to a friend? If not, why not? People really had these answers all of the place. The big ones were that they were for kids, they are not their style, they're not waterproof, no support and they are a mismatch.

In what television show would you most like to be a cast member? From this, I realize that most of my Facebook friends who answered the survey enjoyed comedies. If a campaign were to come from this, a comedic style would be the best choice. 

This is only the beginning of my exploration into the Converse brand. be excited for more soon!

Observations about the BART

So I went to BART this week and sat on various trains for an hour. I observed the people and environment and was pleasantly surprised. I wrote down everything I saw, in bold are the things I think are most noteworthy:

To the BART:
Person walking down the stairs (it's such a weird thing)
Everyone is on their phone
Even if people are waiting for the BART, they continue to walk along the railway
Clipper cards are popular

On the BART:
People are wearing headphones as much as earphones
The BART is so loud that no one talks
More than half of the riders are sleeping
Books and Kindles are popular

I noticed a couple of trends on the BART that went along with many of my observations:
Headphones
Kindles
Clipper card
Phone as a way to keep occupied
Hand Sanitizer

Why My Friends Watch The Superbowl

Just a little video I made for my Strategy class. enjoy. Why do YOU watch the SuperBowl?

Being Aware of the Big Picture

This post will get a little more social than any before. 

A couple of nights ago I went to the Glee Live concert. Don't get me wrong, I love the show and absolutely loved the concert, but something left a horrible taste in my mouth afterwards. It took me awhile to figure it out, but it came to me with a bit of embarrassment. Before the concert, the staff (dressed in cheerleader outfits) handed out airplane barf bags. Yeah you heard me, barf bags. What amazed me is that people were going insane for these things! Men and women alike were screaming their lungs out to receive one of these silly little plastic-lined bags. All gimmicks aside, the bags actually served no purpose. Then the moment: I saw this group of girls yell and almost pass out when they got one of these sick bags. 

That's when it hit me. WHAT...THE...F***?! What the hell is our country coming to? People are starving, war is upon our nations, and disease spreads ever so quickly; but nonetheless, we allow entertainment to divert our attention from such pressing matters. Of course, I am one all for the arts and what it can teach, and so this post will only ask you to be aware. To be wary of how we allow media and entertainment to influence us. Indulging in entertainment can give us inspirations and dreams, but they can also divert our focus from the truth.

In improvisational comedy, especially short-form comedy, we can lose sight of our overall goals on stage. We get so nitpicky about the rules of some games and the laughter surrounding our scenes that we forget that we should be focusing on strong scene-work, relationships, and trust. Just as we need to see the world from an external view, we also need to see improv scenes from the same view. The best improvisers can see scenes simultaneously from both an audience and actor's perspective. By developing these skills, scenes can mature and be both comedic and sophisticated.

So world, I ask this of you, don't get too caught up in things that don't "really" matter and be aware of where we are investing ourselves. Enjoy life, but don't let it blind you.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to tell me what you think.