DG WORD

I’m all for campaigns that provoke, especially when they’re for high priority global issues. The Ontario government is not afraid to commit to racy campaigns in hopes of engaging its youth on issues important to the public - issues we as residents have shown our concern for at election time. And that’s great. Truly.

Some of the most effective government sponsored campaigns I’ve ever seen have been put out by the Ontario government, which I admit makes me proud.

Stupid.ca was effective for so many reasons - their print ads were aggressive, their tv spots were witty and insightful - even sparking copycat ads (granted, I remember the stupid.ca people asking school kids to put together anti-smoking videos for use on the site) - and the website was and continues to be delivered with an exceptional balance of youth angst and hard-line reality.
PS. belated congrats to Geoff Donovan and the rest of the team at Bensimon Byrne for stupid.ca picking up the best of show award at the ‘05 Digital Marketing Awards.

The message is that smoking is stupid, leaving the implication that if you choose to smoke than you are stupid. I don’t think it’s possible to get more to the point than that.

Enter the ‘03 blackout. Now we have the great energy consumption crisis and people demand the government do more to proactively curb energy wasting.

The G’s response? Telling us to flick off is one thing, telling us to ‘F’ off is quite another. I like it for stirring the pot.
Would this controversial campaign have gotten much traction had the government not been involved with it? Doubtful.

In fact, it’s for this reason alone that I actually like this campaign.

I’ll admit I can remember at least one time I turned a light off thanks to this campaign.
It was a tense moment - I knew I was only going out for a few minutes, but regardless my finger was on the light switch and I caught myself staring at it a little longer than I should have - for no other reason than I could’ve sworn that little switch was telling me to go flick myself. There I was, confused and breathing heavily, staring intensely at it while it stared blankly back at me, almost daring me not to switch it off. In the end I showed it who was boss, but still.

This proves the campaign is effective. It feels like after dozens of pitches, this gag was shown as a last ditch effort and, for some bizarre reason, selected as the best way to accurately communicate the message of energy conservation. It’s a perfect example of shock marketing that rivals the Mac’s WTF? campaign.

I guess it’s kind of like a nun giving you the finger for no reason at all. “Why is this happening to me?” you’d no doubt ask yourself. “What kind of wicked powers are at play? Maybe it’s a signal. Yeah. She must be telling me I left the upstairs light on.”

It leaves those of us who do flick off wondering what we did to deserve the nasty finger point and frown from big G when all we’re trying to do is help a brother out.