Surrealist short films are the new... I got nothing.

So you've all seen the Honda hate something; change something campaign, which features a cool little animated spot promoting change in the form of diesel engines. A good cause - a good spot.


Who doesn't love a 'hate is good' anthem?

And now another really cool social marketing campaign - this one for Colorado State Tobacco Education & Prevention, and created by Cactus in collaboration with Biscuit, Final Cut, Company 3 & R!OT, Lime and Beacon Street Studios.

Check it out - they've created a tiny little town called C-Ville which promotes personal choice and education around smoking. Really well executed interactive website. Screencaps below:








Final Cut's Carlos Arias explains the approach saying,

Kids are so sophisticated these days so we don't need to make the message obvious. This is a new way of communicating with youth -- by not spoon-feeding them. Through great visuals and interesting stories, we were able to build up the intrigue. These PSAs had an interesting, short film style - like a throwback to 80s movies or branding commercials with sing-a-longs. They're just zany!

The old story-telling versus message-selling question. It's not really new, and not really about kids though, is it? Since the late 80's we've been seeing ads that don't put the product/message front and centre - remember this Guess Ad from 1987?

The question I would ask in doing a project like this is whether the message stays intact. With product placement so common in film/television, do we still register the BMW in the cool short film?

What I'm interested in here is how to conceptually expand the scope of a marketing/ad campaign while respecting both the audience and the brand/product on display.

I go back to the things I consider critical in interactive/viral/new media: authenticity; content; experience. If you can deliver on those criteria, you're probably doing pretty well.