Thirsty for a little strategy?

More and more I find the less slick the production, the tighter the execution to the insight.

Why is that?

In this case, lack of slickness is helping, not hurting, so no complaints.

This is the winning entry from the Cannes Lions 48 Hour YouTube Ad Contest. Objective: get people to sign a Water Aid petition that tells World leaders it's unacceptable to ignore the water / sanitation program.



What's great from the start here is the decision to leverage YouTube for this contest, thus ultimate message delivery. Not because it's free (alright, not ONLY because it's free) and not because it has a huge, engaged audience (alright, not ONLY because it has a huge, engaged audience) and not because that audience is composed of the sort of people most likely to get engaged in a pro-bono cause like this (alright, not ONLY because...you get it). So that's smart.

But, the ad itself, the idea of using crackers to tell the story - to engage an engaged (online), engaged (socially) audience, brilliant.

I didn't have crackers nearby when I watched this, but my salivation glands felt the pain, nonetheless.

Essentially the insight here is that most people have a difficult time pushing hard for change when they can't feel the problem firsthand. One must experience a problem to fight feverishly for its solution. Apply that to clean drinking water, something most of us take for granted without even knowing it, and this insight is magnified tenfold.

So the creator figured out a way to quickly and easily recreate a similar experience for all us privileged home viewers to give us a little taste, literally.

He wins an award and hopefully his message will help win support for an important initiative.

Rock ON STRATEGY.