Can you manage time around cheer practice and prenatal doctor visits? Think you’ll have time to play a quick game of basketball in between diaper changes? These are a few of the questions Serve asked teens to think about in their latest campaign showing how having a baby as teen can change their entire life right now. The ads depict a high school basketball player and cheerleader in action, both with a baby attached to them along with the message “Think your life won’t change with a baby?” The ads were strategically placed at bus shelters in areas with the highest teen pregnancy rates and are a part of Milwaukee’s long-running teen pregnancy prevention effort. Photographer Jeff Salzer shot the campaign with help from Running Rebels and Northside Cheerleading .
Gym Bag or Diaper Bag? Serve shows teens consequences of teen pregnancy.
Strong Babies Invade Milwaukee.
A baby doing one-armed pushups on a billboard is quite a sight. The iconic visual is just the first in what will be many strong baby ads that will appear across the city over the next year. The campaign is the result of a partnership between Serve and the Milwaukee Health Department to lower the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee by advocating healthier behaviors by young mothers. The first ad touts the value of immunization at an early age. Last year immunizations dropped significantly in Milwaukee, especially in the central city.
That’s one Smoking Billboard.
There are a lot of ways to get people’s attention in outdoor. A smoking billboard however, is not something drivers see everyday. For two days, people honked, stopped and craned their necks to get a better look at the board everyone was talking about in Sioux Falls, SD. The billboard campaign, for Avera Health, was created by BVK to draw attention to the importance of having an emergency medical plan for your family and create awareness for Avera’s emergency services. The boards showed a woman sitting on a gurnee in front of a terrible car crash, with one of the cars smoking behind her — smoke, that billowed off the photo into the sky, thanks to a hidden smoke machine behind the board.
TV, radio and newspapers all covered the effort that had the people of Sioux Falls buzzing. The campaign also drew an unintended consequence. It got the attention of the Sioux Falls Fire Department which asked Avera to eventually shut the smoke down. So now, the campaign continues sans smoke, but still driving people to the website WhyImAlive.com, where consumers can read about more of the amazing life and death stories of people saved by Avera’s emergency department.
Catalog, Schmatalog.
Like everyone else in the watersports category, MasterCraft Boats knew they had to provide a 2011 product line catalog to dealers and prospective buyers. But they also knew they hadn’t become the world-class leader in competition towboats by living like, well, everyone else. So it was only fitting that the catalog of this category leader should be just as progressive.
BVK took that knowledge to heart. Approaching the annual catalog project, instead, like a magazine. Something that wasn’t skimmed through and discarded. Something that had articles, athlete profiles, and editorial content about the lifestyle that is MasterCraft. Something that could live on the coffee tables of brand lovers and water sports enthusiasts for the length of the season. Most importantly, it gave an aspirational peek into the exclusive club of champions that ride behind the best.
Who says QR Codes have to be boring?
While QR codes are becoming more common these days, BVK is one of the first to turn these generic black and white inkblots into something approaching a work of art. Using nearly 100 photos shot for St. Pete/Clearwater, BVK worked with 2ergo, a custom QR design firm in Washington, D.C. to push the boundaries. The use of color photography in QR Codes is breakthrough, and required a careful arrangement and balance of contrast to ensure its functionality. But by using a montage of photos, BVK simultaneously gives viewers a picture postcard tour of the destination. The posters were created to promote a contest for St. Pete/Clearwater. Users who scan the image with their cameras can connect with SPC’s website, where they can instantly fill out an entry and learn more about the destination.
Billboard Mystery Revealed.
They’ve kept Kansas City residents guessing for weeks. A series of simple white billboards with words like, “impossible,” “hopeless” and “unbelieveable,” across them. The mystery finally ended February 10 when it was revealed that campaign is all part of an effort to rebrand St Luke’s Health System, and re-establish their position as the area’s clinical leader in heart, cancer and neuro. Theories about the mystery boards captured the attention of the local news, Facebook and the blogosphere. One of the teaser boards even ended up on the front page of the Kansas City Star. The reveal boards show medical objects like I.V. bags covering up the “im” in impossible and masks covering up the “less” in hopeless. Copy revealed that Reversing Strokes was now possible and that 120 clinical trials gave cancer patients hope. The “Never Settle” branding campaign also includes newspaper, magazines and TV that launched on the Super Bowl.
100 Days of Summer
Remember back in grade school when you had to write about what you did over summer vacation? Well, if you spent it in St. Pete/Clearwater, it would be a rather long paper. In fact, there’s so much to do in St. Pete/Clearwater that BVK and SP/C created a promotion called 100 Days of Summer.
Photo-heavy print ads highlight a variety of activities, beachside and
beyond, that make this Florida west coast destination so popular. Readers are encouraged to go online where they can find an entire calendar of good times, as well as special deals and offers.
Women2Women Campaign To Use Social Media to Reach Inner City Moms
In one of its most ambitious marketng campaigns ever, Serve announced at the United Way Women’s Luncheon, that it would launch a year long social media effort, sharing video messages of 100 Milwaukee women who will offer their advice, and experience with other moms and moms-to-be. The collaborative effort was funded by the CDC in Atlanta in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Zilber School of Public Health, as well as the City of Milwaukee Health Department and Serve.
The campaign involves Serve posting a video on youtube every 3 days for the next year and share on Facebook. The effort is the first of its kind taking on the infant mortality problem in the City of Milwaukee using primarily social media.
Pregnant Mannequins Pop Up At Local Prom Dress Stores.
Prom-goers in Milwaukee got a big surprise this past April at four local prom dress stores. While shopping for the big night’s gown, teens and their parents got a dose of reality in the form of pregnant mannequins. Tags on the pregnancy gowns carried a simple message. A prom date is better without a due date. The participating stores were located on Milwaukee’s near North and South sides. An hispanic version of the mannequin tags was also used. The goal of the effort, funded by the United Way of Greater Milwaukee, is simply to get teens to think twice about the potential consequences of having sex on prom night.
Opportunities for Interns
Here at bvk/bvk>Word, we’re all about opportunities. We don’t just take, we give. We foster growth while encouraging excellence. A number of bvk’s thought leaders were first hired as interns, proving to be great additions to our team.
Now, we’re searching for more. Within the next few weeks, we’ll be posting information about an internship contest via Facebook.
We’re dangling the bait, and we want you to take it.
Slainte,
Craig
Countdown to Timeline #getinfrontofit
Welcome to the 1st in my daily series of Tout vlog’s- I’m looking forward to filling you in on all the great Earned Media campaigns and initiatives we’re working on here at BVK>Word- and hopefully entertaining you a bit along the way.
In T-minus 2 days, Facebook’s Timeline will go live for everyone. Are you ready? There are a lot of questions surrounding Timeline- What are the benefits? Where are my Tabs?? What about the cover photo?…. The main thing to remember here as we approach activation is that Timeline gives us an incredible opportunity to TELL A STORY. Who doesn’t love a good story?
Ad-hoc facts and pics vs. a beautiful, chronological story of your life, company or brand….Which do you think is more engaging?
#getinfrontofit and put some work into your Timeline. It’s fun and it’ll help you tell your story.
We’re in front of it here at BVK. Check out our story @ facebook.com/bvkhq
Slainte,
Craig
