Doing Good Work

A few weeks ago I lost a friend in a tragic car accident. But this was no ordinary woman—she was the most inspiring person I have ever met. Her name was Hanley Denning. Seven years ago she took a trip to Guatemala to learn Spanish. While there she happened to visit Guatemala City’s public dump at a friend’s urging. She couldn’t believe her eyes; there were hundreds of children rummaging in the garbage, living off the food and waste they found in the dump. The next day she called back to the States, had her parents sell all her earthly belongings and started Safe Passage. Today, Safe Passage serves over 600 children a day, giving them food, education, love and hope.

This past weekend VIA helped a group of Safe Passage volunteers put together a showing of an Oscar nominated documentary film, Recycled Life, that tells the story of the Guatemala dump, followed by a short tribute film that celebrated Hanley’s amazing accomplishments. They called her the angel of the dump, and for good reason. May we carry on her good work. Please visit www.safepassage.org to learn more.

What’s That Up Ahead? Looks Tasty.

VIA was hired by a Fidelity Investments-backed venture looking to grow tomatoes in state-of-the-art greenhouses. We did our research in the winter of 2006. And the underlying consumer trend we started to smell was that people were hungry for more simplicity—things that were comfortable and reassuring. And things made locally felt good.

We named the new brand Backyard Beauties. With a tagline Grown Not Too Far From HereTM. So our client launched these incredible vine-ripened tasty fruits of the gods, and they FLEW of the shelves. Now, the product is great, but so is the positioning. A couple of weeks after we launched, the cover of TIME magazine featured a story about how local is the new organic. Moral of the story, snoop around to figure out where your customers plan to take their next trip, and get your fruit stand out on the road ahead of them. Yum.

Are Eighth-Grade Boys Brain Dead?

Against much empirical data, no. They sometimes just need a gentle kick in the butt. We did focus groups at Boys and Girls Clubs with 13-year-old kids who have no real support system to help them prepare for college. They were pretty clear: To get an ad message through to them, be funny and direct. They said, ‘Don't lecture us, don't scare us, don’t be clever—like you get us. You don't.” Funny and direct. They will take it from there.

So we created Kick Start, a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on getting eighth graders to start preparing for college. It is a highly integrated and innovative campaign. Using TV and heavy online, we drive kids to a fun microsite (http://www.kickstartmaine.com/) where a sardonic donkey named Norm helps them take a take a quiz about finding a college that is right for them, gives them free ringtones, and tells them about a TV game show called Kick Start (that we are developing with the TV network The CW) in which some eighth grader will win a $10,000 scholarship. The real incentive to get these kids to act? Any student who goes to a guidance counselor to ask how to get ready for college will get a FREE Norm T-shirt. An eighth grader will walk across broken glass for a free T-shirt.

• See the Television Ad