Creativity for Good

It is a tragedy of the advertising and design industry that too often huge reserves of creative energy and talent are co-opted into the mercenary business of creating desire among people for products they don’t need, and hadn’t previously realised they wanted.

All that inspiration, all those sleepless nights, all that and time and money lost to the hollow game of building profits and shoring up share prices.

But happily this isn’t always the case. Every so often the creativity of agencies, production companies, directors, copywriters and the rest, is used for good.

Here are three projects which recently caught my eye; all of them borne of a desire to inspire positive change, and all hugely innovative in the way they make their message heard.

Greenpeace, ‘Wasteminster’

First up is this two minute film from Greenpeace. The power of the message – that we need to do more to arrest the devastating impact of the UK’s waste plastic exports – derives not just from the quality of the animation, but from the simple technique of building the script entirely from the actual soundbites of Boris Johnson.

Using these empty platitudes, which on the surface appear to show his resolve in fighting climate issues, is a genius way of skewering the prime minister’s hypocrisy.

“The plastic we carefully wash and sort for recycling is being shipped off to other countries where it overwhelms their waste systems and much of it ends up illegally dumped or burnt, poisoning local people and polluting oceans and rivers,” says Sam Chetan-Welsh, political campaigner at Greenpeace. “The government could put a stop to this but so far Boris Johnson is only offering half measures. We need a complete ban on all plastic waste exports and legislation to make UK companies reduce the amount of plastic they produce in the first place.”

Kiyan Prince Foundation, ‘Long Live the Prince’

Next up is this moving campaign from the Kiyan Prince foundation. Kiyan was 15 years old when he lost his life trying to break up a knife fight. A talented footballer, he was on the books of Queens Park Rangers. Now 15 years after his death, if you’re a football fan you may well see him play.

He has been introduced to the latest version of EA Sports global franchise, FIFA 21. Deepfake technology has been used to create an avatar for Kiyan as he would’ve looked today, and the team behind the recreation have even gone as far as to incorporate Kiyan’s style of movement on the ball. Next season QPR will list him as a squad member on all real life matchday programmes (with the number 30 shirt to acknowledge how old he would’ve been), he’ll appear on a nationwide billboard campaign for JD Sports, and Adidas have signed him to wear their latest boot. All proceeds from these tie-ins will go to the foundation established by Kiyan’s father, Dr Mark Prince OBE, in his son’s name.

Dr Prince says, “This is a story about coming back from something traumatic, to demonstrate to the world that you can come back too. Old and young we can change our communities, change society into the place we need it to be.”

The scale of this campaign is really impressive, with multiple brands and organisations uniting to amplify Kiyan’s story, but the brilliance resides in the way it busts out of the confines of conventional media to speak powerfully to an audience who might not otherwise listen.

City of Chicago, ‘Boards of Change’

And finally, Boards of Change, which picked up a black pencil at the recent D&AD awards. When the anger of those who felt they’d been deprived of a political voice led to riots during last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, destroyed shop fronts were quickly boarded up. The plywood boards soon became canvases for messages of hope by local graffiti artists. In a brilliant move the boards were then reused once again to create temporary voter registration booths in the low turnout neighbourhoods of Chicago, encouraging those who have been disenfranchised by the mainstream to create meaningful political change. Chicago saw a record number of voters, which in turn helped put a new occupant in the White House. Simple, elegant and effective.

Three projects which harness the creative power of advertising and design to inspire real world change.

More of this in 2021 please.