ISPCC Annual Christmas Appeal Launches

Last Christmas, 40% of children’s calls unanswered due to severe lack of resources.

As I've gotten older I've realised that there are some things in the world that are in excusable. Some things that should never be allowed to happen. Cruelty to children is top of the list. Thankfully here in Ireland we have a huge number of people who dedicate their lives to helping those who are incapable of helping themselves. People who work for a number of organisations trying to do the right thing. The ISPCC is such an organisation.

Unfortunately, last year, due to a lack of funds, ISPCC was unable to answer almost 40% of calls made to its Childline service on Christmas Day. What's even more tragic is that in the last 12 months the demand on the service has only increased.

So yesterday the ISPCC launched their annual Christmas appeal to raise the vital funds necessary to ensure that thousands more children can access the services they need. The ISPCC relies on the Irish public for the vast majority of its funding, and while we as a nation are great givers, in the approach to Christmas we need to give more. As the saying goes, no gift is too small to make a difference.

Speaking at the launch of their Christmas appeal today, Ashley Balbirnie, CEO of the ISPCC said; “I know many Irish people are experiencing tough times with the ongoing recession but we must be mindful of those who are worse off than us and in particular children who are in abusive situations, alone and calling for help. We need to think about what is important to us at Christmas and how we can help others who truly need support. Throughout the Christmas period we see an increase in calls from children seeking help and it’s easy to get caught up in the chaos of Christmas and forget about those less fortunate. Christmas is a time for giving and a time for sharing, donations to the ISPCC are essential to support our efforts to help these defenceless children.”


The ISPCC has already received over 665k calls for assistance this year from children all over Ireland. That's an increase of 35k calls over this time last year. With many families hit hard by the economic downturn, those experiencing financial worries is only going to be worse then last year. All the additional stress and tension may inadvertently find itself taken out on children.

“Ireland is going through a challenging and turbulent time, with many people finding themselves out of work or experiencing a reduction in pay or hours of work. It’s not easy and it can be a hugely stressful time for people, particularly with the added financial pressures of Christmas. Children are not immune to such family tensions and worries, and for many children this stress can impact negatively on their own well being.” Balbirnie concluded.

The ISPCC are calling on people to make a donation now and make Christmas a happier time for children in need. Donations can be made through the ISPCC website www.ispcc.ie, by calling 1850 50 40 50, or by purchasing an ISPCC ‘Holly badge’, available nationwide for €2 through ISPCC street collections and shopping centres in the run up to Christmas. What’s more, the ISPCC offers a range of low-cost Christmas cards and gifts with a difference in their online Christmas shop.

For information on ways to support the ISPCC this Christmas, please log onto www.ispcc.ie.


ISPCC Childline Service
The ISPCC Childline service is available 24/7 on 1800 66 66 66. Support for young people can be accessed through the Childline website on www.childline.ie. The ISPCC offers a range of face to face, telephone and web based supports for young people and parents through its ChildFocus and TeenFocus services. For details of services in your area please contact the ISPCC on 01 676 7960 or view the ISPCC website www.ispcc.ie.

Philips Design Probe - SKIN:Tattoo

There is some seriously cool stuff being done by the Philips Design Probe, and this is by far one of my favourites. I love the idea of this...

Tattoos and physical mutilation are amongst the oldest forms of personal expression and identity. Subcultures have used tattoos as a form of self representation; a visual language communicating personality and status. Philips Design examined the growing trend of extreme body adornment like tattoos, piercing, implants and scarring.

The Electronics Tattoo film expresses the visual power of sensitive technology applied to the human body. The film subtly leads the viewer through the simultaneous emotional and aesthetic transformations between two lovers.

Augmented Reality: LG Chocolate & Avatar

As part of LG's strategic partnership with the new James Cameron Avatar movie, the company has teamed up with T3 and Total Film to bring a little bit of Augmented Reality to their December issues.

As part of their global partnership with 20th Century Fox, promoting the launch of Avatar, LG Electronics have teamed up with media group Future (publishers of T3 and Total Film) to feature an exclusive augmented reality gatefold ad in their December issues. The campaign is designed to promote both Avatar and LG's new Chocolate BL-40 widescreen mobile phone.

LG's own media agency, Mindshare, were responsible for brokering the deal.

The 6 page ad promotes the stunning widescreen cinema-aspect of the new LG handset by offering users a sneak peak at video from the movie. By holding the ad's AR icon up to your webcam, you can access a special Avatar trailer that plays on an onscreen 3D model of the new handset. Coupled with this is a host of in-magazine features that bring to life both the movie and handset.

John Barton, sales and marketing director at LG, said: "We're delighted to be working with Future on such an exciting campaign. Both 'Avatar' and the new LG Chocolate BL40 represent innovations in their respective industries which this campaign will bring to life by delivering a cutting edge platform to interact with our customers."

Malcolm Stoodley, sales director at Future, said: "As Future's first augmented reality campaign in the UK, this is an exciting new format for advertisers that really brings this campaign alive for our readers. With an audience of influential movie and technology advocates, the exclusive 'Avatar' footage showcases this pioneering new film and LG's new mobile phone to T3 and Total Film readers like no other medium can deliver."

Khoda

“Khoda” is a fantastic animated video project by Reza Dolatabadi using 6000 paintings that were specifically created for the 5 minute film. Each time you pause the video you see a new painting.

Over 6000 paintings were painstakingly produced during two years to create a five minutes film that would meet high personal standards. Khoda is a psychological thriller; a student project which was seen as a ‘mission impossible’ by many people but eventually proved possible!

Calvin Flakes

Last week Calvin Harris tweeted about a gift that arrived for him from Kellogg’s.

Basically Harris had been doing a lot of tweeting recently about his breakfast preferences, about his choice of cereal. Picking up on this, Kellogg's sent Harris his very own breakfast cereal with the strapline ‘50% cornflakes, 50% branflakes – the perfect mix’. This is superb marketing. Simple, low cost, and yet highly, highly effective. Instant Brand Ambassador!

The Web In 5 Years, According To Google

Revolution Magazine carried a great article last Friday about an interview that Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, gave at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009.

While the interview is initially about Google, where it's come from and where it's going, Eric Schmidt also gives an overview of how Google sees the web changing in the next five years time. Schmidt outlines a 'radically different' internet that will be dominated by the Chinese language and Social Media content, and delivered to us by super-fast broadband.

By far one of the most interesting points that Schmidt raises is that brands should be listening to youth consumers when planning their marketing strategies. He simply points out, "Talk to a teenager about how they consume media and remember in five years they'll be your employee".

This is an overview of Schmidt's vision compiled by ReadWriteWeb:

1. Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.
2. Five years is a factor of ten in Moore's Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.
3. Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance - and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.
4. "We're starting to make significant money off of Youtube", content will move towards more video.
5. "Real time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results."
6. "We can index real-time info now - but how do we rank it?"
7. It's because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that "is the great challenge of the age." Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.

This is the interview:

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles

Last Thursday saw the trailer go live for the new Capcom "Resident Evil" game. Essentially this is the lastest in the popular zombie killing series of games, featuring all the blood, guts and gore that would be expected.

What wasn't expected was the takeover video ad that turned an otherwise normal webpage into a zombie rampaged mess. Allowing users to both watch and play the new game. This is seriously cool...



Mona Hamilton, VP-marketing at Capcom, said "This is the first time users can interact and actually play the game inside the trailer, it really allows people to experience that surprise horror and fear. ... It was designed to take the experience to the next level."

GameTrailers.com, part of the MTV Networks entertainment unit inside Spike Digital, and JVST, San Francisco, worked with Capcom to create the interactive trailer. Unfortunately the interactive nature of the trailer means that it is only available on the GameTrailers site, however, there is an impressive advertising suite backing up this element of the campaign across the US market. Unusually, all this advertising is driving users to GameTrailers.com rather then a dedicated campaign microsite.

Brad Winters, general manager for GameTrailers.com, said "It's a captive audience with people coming to the site for nothing other than to watch game videos. ... This engages the audience more than just watching a video and if you can get them involved in the content, it's going to make more of an impression."

This is the first interactive trailer that GameTrailers.com has hosted, and while Winters doesn't see it taking over the traditional trailer, he did say "I think we'll see this kind of interactivity more and more as part of marketing plans. ... And not just for video games and movies, but it's an opportunity for anyone creating video content [for their brand]."