I saw an amazing public awareness campaign yesterday.

I came across it first in the bus on the way to work. One of the few overhead ad-panels I’ve ever really cackled at; a cartoonish illustration of a guy wearing a hardhat and a confused expression, with a bloody length of rebar stuck through his head.

“Win an MP3 player and other cool stuff” was written in big letters, along with “Workplace Safety” and “Join the contest and win!”. Highly incongruous and ironic copy given the image. The people next to me were cackling at it too.

I memorized the url on the ad and checked the website as soon as I got to work. And hey – it’s fantastic. Full of craziness and craftiness, and also lessons about workplace safety. It’s really excellent work and I salute whomever made it.

It turns out – as i was informed by my knowledgeable colleagues – that the client,
the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario has done this sort of thing before, in a freaky tv campaign called Prevent It, which can be seen on YouTube, here and here.

And what struck me is, “Here, at last, is a client that takes risks!” Hallelujah!
Possibly this is because risk is their stock and trade, and because lives are at stake, but they deserve credit anyway, because intelligent and effective risk-taking in advertising is all too rare in Canada, though in other places, like the UK, it is common. (I mean, who can forget this risque classic?)

Very few clients are willing to take risks, for all kinds of reasons, none of them good, and collectively we suffer for it. And individually those organizations that do not take risks suffer too, losing their edge and their energy, and failing to translate their strategic visions into reality.

Of course risk inevitably involves an element of, well, risk. Whereas when you go for the same-old same-old you can be sure that whatever else happens, you won’t fail. At least not by standing out. But from an organizational perspective that’s risky too, because in the end campaigns fail by not standing out. Everyone has seen that kind of familiar failure, mediocrity tacitly approved, simply because it’s less risky to ignore than to critique.

I think part of the problem is that organizations tend to diffuse risk-taking, and when individuals do go out on a limb and advocate a ‘risky’ strategy, they become vulnerable to scapegoating if – for whatever reason – the execution does not match the original vision. Maybe organizations should have designated ‘risk takers’ who are expected to take risks and aren’t so vulnerable to scapegoating.

Another reason organizations fail to take useful risks is that employees often seem to feel they need to shield their bosses from seeing ‘wacky’ ideas. Whereas, in my experience, the higher up the ladder you go the more open decision-makers are to taking risks, and the greater their ability to see the potential benefits of trying something new. So I guess what I’m saying is that organizations that want to succeed by standing out rather than fail by staying in line need to create a culture of risk-taking that reaches from top to bottom and back up again.

Innovation always includes a measure of risk. But creative, intelligent and targeted risk-taking can produce results that really do the job, that really succeed, and that really matter.

Anything else, as Ontario’s Worker Safety Insurance Board evidently knows, is asking for trouble.

http://design-feed.net

“Design-Feed is a design feed aggregator. [Design-feed] hand-pick the most interesting design related RSS feeds and present them in an easy-to-browse format. This means you can get all the latest design news in one place, rather than trawling through hundreds of sites a day. Every post aggregated is also searchable by keyword.”

Oh. My. God.

So this post is a long time coming and I considered that given the love that Porter was getting from fellow bloggers like David Jones and Steve Palmer that I would keep my gushing to friends and family. That’s over. I’m in love. And it’s with a raccoon.

Well okay, not the raccoon specifically but the brand he represents.

I have flown Porter 6 times now. And I couldn’t like this service, brand and experience anymore if I’d created it myself. I’ve dedicated my life to evangelizing brand experiences like this one but rarely do I see one actually executed to the level of detail of the Porter brand.

Now truth be told, an airline could name themselves TinCan Airline and have stewards that spit on me as I departed. But if they landed at the Island Airport (in Toronto) I’d still stand in line for a ticket. But that’s a whole other post.

But Porter doesn’t just rely on their great location to draw customers, they rely on delivering an experience from the time you book your flight to the time you walk out of the terminal, that makes you feel like a civilized, sophisticated, jet setter. And that pushes my buttons.

Of course, (there’s always an of course) there are a few eentsy-weensty things I might have done differently…First, they make a point (in their brand book available in re:porter, their in-flight mag) to estblish one of their pillars as being authentically Canadian. Yet the brand was developed in the UK. Hmmmm…yes I know the creative director was Tyler Brule but I can’t help but think that there has to be some agency is this vast nation that had the creative capacity to pull this one off. Second, the “terminal” at Union Station is very odd. I didn’t even know it was there the first time. And when I did find it, you can’t sit there to wait because you can’t see the shuttle arriving. Finally, baggage claim was a bit of a fiasco. I recognize few of their weekday passengers are checking baggage but I flew on the Sunday after the holidays and the very small baggage area was mayhem and difficult to navigate without some unintended pushing and shoving.

Understand, these things are but mere sparse spots on the giant sprinkle donut of praise I’m offering to the airline. This airline is not only worth a try, its worth your loyalty. You will get as much as you give, if not more.

Last week we at 76design received a notice inviting us to develop and submit a flash game to www.addictinggames.com as part of a contest with $20,000 in prizes. As we had just left a meeting in which our design team had decided we should do more ‘fun’ projects for our own amusement, this seemed like a timely opportunity. After checking out the very fine print, however, I discovered that by submitting a game to the contest you give up ALL rights of ownership to the game to www.addicitinggames.com, regardless of whether or not your game wins a prize.

In other words, under the guise of a contest, and for the modest investment of 20k, the folks at www.addictinggames.com are planning to harvest perhaps hundreds of new games, the best of which would surely show up on the popular site shortly thereafter, and likely without attribution.

What a scam! I was surprised to learn that www.addictinggames.com is owned by Atom Entertainment, whose Board of Directors includes Rob Burgess, Chairman of Macromedia (now owned by Adobe) and former Warner CEO Bob Daly. I wonder if such predatory and deceptive content development stategies are OK with them.

Yesterday I received an alert from the New Media Business Alliance warning its members about the contest. I’m posting this now to remind others to ‘read the fine print’ and (in a small way) to challenge Atom Entertainment to stop trying to sucker people into handing over their best content for free.

I have recently noticed an outdoor campaign by The Beer Store (Ontario, Canada only). The campaign as I’ve seen it is executed on bus boards that say “beer &” and then pairs this with a visual of a nice steak, pasta dish, sushi, etc. I did some research and did find an example (not a bus board) of the campaign:

The Beer Store “beer &” Ad

Clearly they are trying suggest that beer is something to be enjoyed with a nice meal. They are trying to change the perception that beer is meant to be drunk 4 (or likely more) at a time, with a bunch of buddies while at a bar, party etc.

The strategy is designed to take market share away from wine, which is a more common choice to accompany the civilized dining experience. I didn’t write the strategy for this campaign. I’m deducing. I also think its a good strategy with some real potential.

However, the creative execution of this campaign falls short.

First, the creative isn’t showing me a nice refreshing glass of amber lager that I can now visualize drinking along with my nice meal. It’s showing me the word “beer” written in a dirty grey font. Words aren’t appetizing. Neither is the colour grey.

The creative does however show a picture of a nice juicy steak or a steaming fork of pasta. That ad makes me want to buy steak. Not beer.

The Beer Store could have taken the creative even further by suggesting different types (or even brands) of beer for different meals. Imagine a glass of dark beer (Guiness?) with steak. Or how about the ever popular Belgian beer (Stella Artois?) with a nice plate of mussels and frites. Now you’re painting a delicious picture for the consumer. And you’re taking the guess work out of it for those who don’t know what beer might go with certain food, those consumers who are used to pairing wine with their meals.

I did notice that this is addressed in copy written only on the ads. However, without drawing the consumer in to the idea in the first place, I’d be surprised if many consumers spent the time to actually read the copy.

So overall the verdict for this campaign: Good Strategy, Bad Execution.

In an effort to post more frequently, I’m going to attempt an ongoing feature of sorts.

I lifted the idea from 37signals‘ semi-frequent “Screens Around Town” posts. I think they serve as a great vehicle to discuss what’s happening on the web – be it fresh, old, exceptional, horrible or anything in-between – and hopefully drum up some conversations along the way. I spend a good chunk of my day developing, designing and concepting websites and when I’m not doing that I’m probably surfing. So what better blog fodder than my ramblings (er… insightful commentary) on what I encounter on a daily basis?

For lack of any better ideas, I shall dub this feature “State of the Net”. Close runner-up was “Finger Clickin’ Good”.

First up, let’s take a look at online newspapers – how do they handle the challenge of visually managing so much information?

Ottawa Citizen – overall, it comes across as rather flat with very little division between the major elements on the page. The hierarchy of information isn’t communicated in this design – pretty much all the text on the page is the same size. Essentially the viewer’s eye wanders with nothing to guide it. Only a few stories contain a precis, which means that viewers have to leave the page if they want any information on a story beyond the headline.

International Herald Tribune – IHT does a better job of dividing the page into sections so that it’s easy to see which information is more important. A visible hierarchy is evident as you drill down from the lead story to the features, making good use photography and typography to keep the viewer engaged while maintaining a sense of organization and balance. My only criticism of this design is the somewhat dull palette that reduces the overall contrast. However, it quite effectively communicates the information to the visitor.

New York Times – this design does an excellent job of guiding the visitor through the content. The use of typography and keylines clearly distinguishes the various blocks on the page. There are enough photographs to engage the viewer, but not so much that they create clutter. The serif typeface used at various weights is extremely readable and nearly every story has a short precis – which means less need to leave the page to get the information you want.