Moshe Engelberg On Everything Marketing

Your source for “ah-ha” moments and thinking different

Census Ads: A Good Investment?

The U.S. Census bureau is spending $133 million on on their 2010 campaign to get people to fill out and return their census forms. First ad I saw was during the Super Bowl and had some refreshing humor (for a government agency) and even a touch of "duh" style sarcasm. Now I'm seeing their ads in the Olympics coverage.

How do they justify high profile spending that kind of money in the current economy? They make a simple and effective ROI argument: The more people return their forms, the less money is needed for follow-up. Which means millions of dollars go back into local communities. Here's the Bureau's video overview of the campaign including a couple ad excerpts.

I'm glad to see the government using advertising this way. They appear to have a well-integrated marketing communications campaign going. Do the ads motivate you?

More to follow!

T.V. Teacher

When I teach my Health Communication course to grad students, one of the most popular classes is about using entertainment as a vehicle for promoting health, a powerful and vastly underleveraged resource (can you tell I feel strongly about it?).

Invariably, students - most are 20 something - remember an episode of a show from their teen years, like Saved by the Bell about the downside of smoking pot, or eating disorders, or taking pills to help study. Check out this well-intended, often-played, and I think cheesey clip:

<br />via videosift.com

What TV show or movie really influences you about a health or social issue?

We’ll tally results and list them here.

Going Deeper

The televised memorial service for Michael Jackson that was viewed by almost as many Americans as Obama’s inauguration was not just about his entertainment, but also his societal contributions, like the song We are the World and his Heal the World Foundation.  

On a similar note, a newspaper article about legendary singer-songwriter Joan Baez’s recent San Diego concert focused on her decades of political activism and her new version of the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome.

Whether we notice it or not, “popular culture” is one of the main ways we learn how to be, what products to use, and how things work in our little worlds. Like in the movie The Truman Show, where virtually everything is a product placement, we’re constantly surrounded by messages with meaning.

In popular TV shows, hit movies, songs, plays, books, these social messages are everywhere.

What do you think about popular culture being our main educator?