Halloween 07
No new pin-up for 2007 - but that didn’t stop over a thousand people adding one of the earlier halloween cover images to each others social-networking sites (and in one case an ebay listing!).
It’s been a few weeks now, and everyone has had their spooky fun, so I taken the steps to replace it with an alternative message - in my own geeky game of trick or treat. Of course, I’d thought about spamvertising before, but decided this time to promote a good cause - cancer screening. It can’t be certain that old threads get read or noticed, so designed it with a strong use of (oldschool computing) colour and plenty of space around it and the competing area - whilst keeping the file-size extremely low (lots of hits = lots of bandwidth). Perhaps it is garish and attention seeking, and perhaps it might be noticed and maybe make a difference.
In the US there is the Ad Council which does public service advertising. In the UK, the approach to public service broadcasting follows a slightly different model, with its Public Information Films however, as far as I’m aware - this only goes as far as broadcasting, with OPSI / HMSO (or is it the COI?) carrying out the majority of print-based propaganda public information. Either way, ethical-advertising bringing attention to social and health-issues (along with nation-internal propaganda) doesn’t appear to have the same creative-driven approach that the yanks take to it, and mores the pity. More to the point - it’s not visible on bus-shelters, train-stations or online, and with an (ahem) diversified media landscape, if kids aren’t glued to the TV - how on earth will they learn to say “No” to strangers, or not to put rugs down on freshly polished floors? fore-warned is fore-armed.
Many cancers need not be fatal if caught early enough. Screening is a big part of that, and perhaps making somebody consider it might be enough to prevent it.