More than a million challenge videos have been posted on Facebook so far. The challenge has raised well over $4 million and counting, according to the ALS Association. That money will be used to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease – the fatal disease facing former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, who is credited with steering a meaningless ice bucket celebrity gimmick into a focus on ALS. The ice bucket aspect is the summer equivalent of the many “polar bear” swims and plunges each winter that raise money and attention for ALS.
The above quote was written by contributing writer, Tom Watson, on Forbes on line. His article and the controversy over the challenge (yes, there is controversy about everything and anything to fill so many hours of media) are worth reading:
In the end, the thesis of Mr. Watson’s post is that the clever media campaign to raise funds also raised awareness.
And, the thesis of this post is that “awareness” seems to be the word of the moment.
On the heels of the “Ice Bucket Challenge,” comes “Drop Your Pants for Underwareness.”
When this Grandma saw the ad in People Magazine, I automatically ripped it out. I looked close enough to the picture to be able to read the tiny print, for which I needed my strongest magnifying glasses. It read, “Nik is wearing Depend Real Fit.” Nik does not look like he has been out of diapers more than two decades or so. Yes, the picture caught my eye and I examined it further. He is wearing a gray henley, a jeans jacket, socks and those new suede sneakers I am seeing in all the magazines for fall. He is not wearing pants, so we clearly see the Depends.
We have Depends in our closet. They are leftovers from the last stages of life of my mother and grandpa’s father. It was waste to throw them away and GG did not want them in the house. Grandpa and I took them thinking you never know when you might need them. Great Grandma has been dead for eight years and Great Grandpa for three years so they have been sitting on the top shelf of a closet for a while. Learning that 65 million of us may need them makes me feel lucky to not need them—now.
Well, the Depends in our closet do not look like the Depends in this ad. It is a lot better that they are blue, and for Depends, they look pretty good. Remember, I said, “for Depends.”
I finally got around to reading the rest of the print ad, “Support the over 65 million people who may need a different kind of underwear. For every pant drop $1 will be donated for research and education. Join the movement and get a free sample at underwareness.com”
Okay, now you too can go on the website and see what the new Depends Real Fit look like. But don’t worry. We have awareness combined with fundraising again. Welcome to the new world of media advertising.
Then, I looked for the controversy. Instead, I found approval.
In the July 27, 2014 New York Times Business Section article on line, under the subheading of advertising, this next awareness advertising is described. In “Aiming to Reduce a Stigma, Depend’s New Pitch Is `Drop Your Pants’,” Andrew Adam Newman writes:
It had been a fairly typical meeting in the New York offices of Ogilvy & Mather last November, with a team from the agency wrapping up a pitch for an advertising campaign to representatives from Depend, the brand of incontinence products from Kimberly-Clark.
Then the opening notes of “Get Ready for This” by 2 Unlimited blasted in the conference room. On cue, the Ogilvy team members – including Calle Sjoenell, the chief creative officer; Victoria Azarian, a group creative director; and Danielle Vieth, a creative director – all dropped their pants to reveal they were wearing Depend undergarments.
“It was a pretty amazing moment,” Ms. Azarian said, recalling the reaction.
The campaign they pitched, which is being introduced on Monday, is called “Underwareness,” a portmanteau of “underwear” and “awareness,” and is aimed at consumers under 50. The goal of the campaign is to reduce the stigma of the products by showing that bladder incontinence is common and affects younger people more than many people realize. It also highlights that the products look more like underwear than they did decades ago, when they resembled bulky diapers.
A new commercial opens with an above-the-chest shot of an actor walking down a city street wearing a denim jacket, before a wider shot reveals that below the waist he wears only Depend briefs. More and more pedestrians fall in behind him, also dressed professionally or casually above the waist but wearing only a Depend undergarment below. The ever-growing procession turns the heads of people nearby, including a mounted police officer and a man in a barbershop getting a shave.
“It’s time to bring it out in the open – it’s time to drop your pants for Underwareness,” a voice-over says. “A cause to support the over 65 million people who may need Depend underwear. Show them they’re not alone, and show off a pair of Depend, because wearing a different kind of underwear is no big deal.”
Screen text at the end of the spot promotes a new website for the effort, Underwareness.com, where consumers are encouraged to learn more about the prevalence of what the brand calls “bladder leakage” and to take part in a fund-raising effort.
Now here is the pitch that adds the charitable fundraising element in another funky way:
Consumers who might not need Depend are being encouraged, as a gesture of solidarity with those who do, to post a photo to social networks of them wearing the products. For every photo, video or message that is posted to social networks and to YouTube using the hashtags #Underwareness or #DropYourPants, the brand will donate $1, up to a total of $3 million, to the Simon Foundation for Continence and the United Way Worldwide.
Nearly half of those who experience some form of urinary incontinence are under 50, according the brand. Among the causes are, for women, weakened pelvic muscles that can stem from pregnancy and childbirth and, for men, prostate cancer.
Print ads and billboards in the campaign feature attractive models photographed against a neutral gray background and resemble Gap ads – except that with their trendy above-the-waist attire the models wear Depend underwear. The ads, which promote the charitable effort with the headline, “I dropped my pants for Underwareness,” will appear in magazines with readerships younger than the brand has historically sought, like People, Men’s Health and Women’s Health. Billboards will appear, among other places, in the trendy New York neighborhoods SoHo and Chelsea.
“No one ever has the opportunity to see it outside of its packaging,” said Ms. Azarian of the product. “So we really wanted to bring it out in the open with big outdoor billboards in places where you would typically see fashion and underwear advertising to have people say, `Holy mackerel, that is not what I thought it was.’ “
It reminds me of a long (we never say old) saying, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Researching on the internet, I found out it the saying traces.0 back to the Bible! Of course, it means that everything that has happened now has happened before. I thought it had something to do with ancient battle strategy, or don’t repeat the same mistake twice kind of saying.
Whatever you might say, the ALS Challenge’s goals were charity fundraising and raising awareness of ALS. This dropping of one’s pants campaign says it is about charity fundraising and raising awareness, but it is about making money. How do I know? Why else would there be a monetary limit of $3 million dollars? Why doesn’t the print ad in tiny print already there say that there is a monetary limit of $3 million dollars so we are “aware” of it? If this challenge takes off like ALS then the charitable fundraising number will be closer to $4 million. Are the corporate and advertising gurus behind this “underwearness” and “Depends” advertising strategy afraid of success?
The only awareness that has been raised in this Grandma is that “reality stunts” are the way for us plain folk to imitate the celebrities and also get our own five minutes of fame on the internet, television and other social media.
Now advertisers are giving us what is next for awareness. Since even the mainstream Today Show shows the best snippets of what is “trending on social media,” a number of those who drop their pants are going to make it on national television.
When the charitable fundraising amount raised by the “Drop Your Paints for Underwearness” is closer to the $4 million the ALS ice bucket challenge has raised, and Depends only gives their self determined limit of $3 million to charity, let’s see if Depends gets the awareness to know that charitable fundraising is a powerful lion. Let’s roar.
Always the optimist, this Grandma hopes we won’t need to.
Joy,
Mema
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