I talk a lot about how powerful pop culture can be as an educator about health and social issues, and as a shaper of social norms. From USA for Africa's We Are the World song for African famine relief to the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Hope for Haiti Now telethon, there have been many of these efforts over the years. Perhaps the most poignant example is when pop culture, particularly the entertainment industry, comes together in response to sudden tragedy. 

What reminded me was tonight's airing of the documentary (dramatically titled), When Pop Culture Saved America: A 9/11 Story on the Biography channel. Below is their description, and here's the full show on Hulu.

In the aftermath of 9/11, getting back to normal would not be a simple task. For those in the world of pop culture and entertainment, the challenge was how to help America achieve that goal--to cheer the country up during its darkest days. This documentary takes a comprehensive look at the days and months following the attack--to show how the non-news media pitched in to bring the nation together. Comedians, singers, actors, entertainers all did their part with concerts, telethons and specials. Television, movies, Broadway, music and even sports helped bring us back to the new normal. We'll also review the impact of the events of 9/11 on pop culture and how TV and films were changed forever.

Fundamentally, these highly visible pop culture shows and songs do several important things: They unify us, they acknowledge what we're all trying to make sense of, they give us permission to feel the emotions that the celebrities express, they invite us to eventually laugh in spite of the tragic losses, and at the right time they tell us that it's okay to move on with our lives.

And these are all things that every individual and organization can also do- each in their own way.

Today I applaud MTV for promoting the use of entertainment to promote social change, a marriage I've been advocating for years, in a very visible way.

MTV Video Music Awards has a new award category this year: Best Video with a Message. AceShowBiz describes it this way:

It's a special category that recognizes artists who use their music videos to send positive messages of empowerment or raise awareness of social issues that youth are dealing with. 

And the messages range from self esteem (Lady Gaga's Born This Way) to domestic violence awareness (Eminem's Love the Way You Lie) to anti-bullying (Taylor Swift's Mean), among others. Big name nominees.

By creating an category for artists doing videos with positive social messages, MTV is bringing "entertainment-education" to a whole new level of credibility. It is clear recognition from within the entertainment industry. 

Now it's up to public health folks and social service agencies involved in these causes to leverage the buzz that this new MTV award will generate. Let's step up and do it!

Teen sex, celibacy, birth control, condoms, gay and lesbian relationships, video sex tapes, virginity, pregnancy, dirty dancing, communicating about feelings, the dad-son (gay) sex talk, and... even romance. This was Glee tonight, prefaced with a "parental discretion advised" warning.

Did the seductive Do you want to touch me song and dance go too far? Note how Glee Club teacher Will holds up a sign "Too much?"

With singing, dancing, guest star Gwyneth Paltrow, and a dubious but entertaining sex-ed storyline, tonight's Glee episode (entitled 'Sexy') covered it all. This was a great "Entertainment-Education" example using popular culture - a hit TV show - to promote health. Here's a blow-by-blow recap from your fave reviewers, E-Online. 

What made it so good? It illustrated so many principles about what makes entertainment work - or not - as a carrier of health messages. Especially the core idea; the "entertainment contract."

The entertainment contract refers to an implicit agreement between we the viewers who agree to suspend disbelief and connect with the characters, in exchange for the producers providing us with a good time. Did the show violate the contract by having a storyline that was too unbelievable... like Kurt the gay guy not knowing anything about sex? Or cheerleader Britanny who has a boyfriend (and a girlfriend) thinking babies come from storks (really, at 16 years old) and therefore thinks she's pregnant because a stork nested by her bedroom window? Or were we the viewers able to keep relating to the characters and the story. As the theory goes, once the entertainment contract is violated, viewers switch from an empathic mindset to an evaluative and often dismissive frame of mind, which renders the education ineffective. 

Just the first 15 minutes of the show will be a great teaching tool - very exciting! Well, to me anyway. Harnessing TV shows for health persuasion was what my PhD dissertation was about, the subject of graduate courses I've taught. and the focus of products we developed. Yeah, I'm psyched.

Here's a couple reviews: Wall Street Journal and a Glee Wiki (with links to all the songs in the episode). Your thoughts on this episode of Glee?

In tackling tough public health and social issues, we talk about three main ways to make change happen:

1. Education: Teach people so they know the right thing to do.

Example: Driver training programs

2. Environment: Change the environment so people automatically do the right thing.

Example: Speed bumps that slow people down 

3. Enforcement: Make laws that punish people for not doing the right thing.

Example: Speed limits and speeding tickets

This comic strip by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Steve Breen (a local San Diegan) makes the case very well with "Chelsea's Law" - the new sex offender one strike law that resulted from the tragic murders of Chelsea King and Amber Dubois.

Sure, a candlelight vigil is good. People learn about the situation and feel like that are doing something when it seems like nothing can be done. Memorial services and honoring the victim's memory is important too. But some situations need reform, better laws, to really make an impact. Violence against youth, rape, sex offenses, and murder need policies that force reform. Educating violators and victims and the public still matters, as does creating safer environments. Ultimately, all three approaches contribute to the higher good. Sometimes though, it takes a law.

Viacom's movie studio Paramount needs a new way to make money since DVD sales are declining. They are now launching an online video clip service that makes favorite segments from its movie collection available for purchase. 

The price depends on your licensing agreement with them, and how you plan to use the clips. Heres' a link to their demo, which is only open to "friends" right now (if you have access, please let me know).

Techies call these clips "short-form video assets." I think they are the future of online video. We're working in this space too - more to follow!

The Senate is considering tossing the public option in favor of an experiment: See if private insurance companies play fair for a couple years, and if not, then include a public option. In a very clever reframing, cartoonist Andy Lubershane paints a picture (draws an animated cartoon actually) of what would happen if we treated firefighting services like we do health insurance - complicated contracts, pre-existing conditions, etc. Check it out.

Whatever your opinion, now's the time to express it.

What a marketer LuAnne is - making money from her blog! She recognized how to apply the law of supply and demand to transform her little brother's need for computer time into a revenue stream. Now kids all over the world can learn the economics of blogging from the Sunday comics... see, entertainment can educate!

I was recently at an event honoring Norman Lear, the great TV and film producer, and political and social activist who brought us All in the Family,  Maude, The Jeffersons and many other culture changing shows.

He said two things in his acceptance speech that really struck me: 1) I believe waking up every morning to be a production. We have a day to produce. 2) Success is how much joy we get out of the moments of our lives as we live them.

Much meaning -- not just for marketing, but for living.

The FTC is mad at the credit reporting company Experian for misleading consumers and luring them away from the government's free annual credit reports in order to get them to subscribe to a $14.95 monthly credit monitoring service. Experian is using classic marketing tactics. The government provides free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com (why not .gov?).  Experian, smelling money, bought a better-named site called freecreditreport.com, and they have been saturating the airwaves with their very popular trio of slackers singing about how they could have avoided ruining their credit if they had only tracked their status on Experian's website.

Now the government is fighting fire with fire. Their video spoofs show a remarkably similar band warning people, as the NY Times story quotes, that: Other sites may turn your head; they say they’re free, don’t be misled. Once you’re in their tangled web, they’ll sell you something else instead. 

Experian knows what they're doing, and refuses to give the FTC their freecreditreport.com domain or to cease and desist. Though they did pay a $1.25 million fine for misleading consumers; small change compared to the money they're making. The other marketing tactic is playing on people's fears. Most of us just don't need regular updates on our credit reports. But messages about identity theft, losing everything we have, etc, trigger us to buy these credit monitoring services.

Lots of people go to Experian's site for free credit reports when they mean to go to the government site, Bottom line is that Experian's marketing is effective and I believe intentionally misleading. But is it right?

After 72 Years on the Air, 'Guiding Light' Fades to Black.

This was a recent Washington Post headline announcing the demise of the longest running soap opera in history.

We worked with the soap opera community several years ago, as part of the multifacted Soap Summits to encourage better portrayals of safe-sex, drug problems, and violence prevention in soaps, which at that time reached over 30 million very loyal viewers a day.

I learned five key lessons:

1. My initial and rather smug dismissal of soaps as a waste of time was deeply misguided, as I quickly realized that for many viewers watching their soap was a valued ritual that they called "my time." It was an effective and reliable escape from the hardships of everyday life.
2. The currency for entertainment on television is ratings, which translates into profit, which is their bottom line. Incorporating positive health portrayals is only relevant to the soap opera community when it helps ratings. The job of the health community is to package their issues in ways that improve soap opera stories. It's their turf.
3. Health and social issues can be highly engaging and poignant, and add to to a storyline,without turning into a dull or preachy lecture. I remember one conversation among All My Children writers deciding, as a result of the Soap Summit, to have a new young female character always carry condoms in her purse as part of her persona.
4. Women and men want different endings. Women want stories to show the resolute woman taming the wild man or bad boy so he becomes good. Everybody wins. Men want the bad guy to lose and be beaten by a better man. Winner and loser.
5. Lastly, I learned that soap operas were invented by Procter & Gamble to sell soap, hence the name. The "opera" was simply an addictive container for P&G ads that sold their products to homemakers. Pretty clever.

May we all shine our guiding lights.