In the run up to the UN summit in New York next week, One, the charity headed by Bono and Bob Geldof, is launching a campaign to ensure that no child will be born with HIV by 2015.
The campaign calls on people to sign up to the petition, to put pressure on world leaders to ensure that no child is born with HIV by 2015.
The campaign encourages users to choose one of five animated babies and a protest message to send on to friends that might also be interested in supporting the cause. Just by taking part in the interaction with the babies on the website you are signing a petition to world leaders!
Obviously some people will seek out petitions like this and sign willingly because they believe in the cause but sadly most people aren't as proactive as this. Therefore One has so cleverly created something that looks like a bit of fun, that people can talk about and send to their friends and almost without realizing are helping to support a very important campaign. It's not that they're fooling people into this, it's just that they're making 'politics' accessible to those that might find it intimidating or all a bit too serious for them. It's not that people don't care, it's just some people aren't interested in listening to balding old men squabbling and might find cute babies and internet interactivity more appealing. Yes the campaign is a little unorthodox and the babies kind of creepy in my eyes but I think it will get peoples attention and that's what they want right?
They are also asking people, including celebrities, to change their profile on their social networking sites to one of them as a baby. This again is a subtle and unimposing way of getting the message to spread.
Check out the campaign website here... http://www.one.org/international/actnow/babyprotest/index.html
The campaign supports something so serious and I see that by creating something quite comical and entertaining will attract more viral attention, but for me it is quite crude and distracts away from the main purpose of the issue. The comical babies used don't make me want to support the campaign because I have no connection or emotional attachment to what I see. The colour palette works to suit the humorous route that has been taken but its just adds to the fire for me, that the whole thing is a bit of a joke...I understand what you say in that the internet interactivity aspect is appealing but its seems a strange target audience to focus on when I can imagine if the campaign had just had a little bit more of an emotional attachment it would outreached to many more people.
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