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Soldiering On

By Nicole Villeneuve

20090106solderingon.jpg
One month after its launch, War Child Canada’s latest multi-media campaign, Help Child Soldiers, continues to actively make itself visible on downtown streets. With a fresh smattering of posters spotted on Queen Street West (at McCaul Street) this past Sunday, the recent resurgence in the street-level marketing is an attempt to further educate and engage pedestrians. According to War Child Canada Director of Marketing James Topham, it’s working. “We’ve had a record number of seventy volunteer offers in just one week,” says Topham. “The television spot has been extended into January, but the posters add a new dimension, especially now that students are returning for school.”
With more than 100,000 views of the online portion of the campaign, as well as two short supplementary videos (which are extended scenes from the original), Help Child Soldiers has in one month surpassed the viewership of War Child Canada’s previous multi-platform Camp Okutta campaign. And similar to the reactions Okutta elicited, Topham simply points to the comments on Help Child Soldiers’ YouTube page as an accurate depiction of the misunderstanding the ads can evoke.
Both of the campaigns were created and produced at no cost by Toronto’s John St. Advertising (who happened to snag themselves Marketing Magazine‘s Agency of the Year title for 2008), with additional creative and technical input on Help Child Soldiers by a handful of other local companies. Visit Help Child Soldiers for the full campaign, including some downloadable, printable, postable posters of your very own.
Photo by sniderscion in the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

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  • http://undefined spacejack

    I’m not sure I get it. What are these posters trying to say exactly?

  • http://null Damon Kemp

    I would think, from the helpchildsoldiers.com, it’s informing people about the plight of child soldiers.

  • http://null _V

    From what I have seen, the main point they’re trying to make here is that if we do nothing, it’s just as bad as if we were actively supporting child soldiers (i.e doing nothing to stop guns being put into the hands of children is as bad as handing it to them yourself.)

  • http://null Nicole Villeneuve

    Bingo.
    from the website:
    ““At first glance this campaign looks backwards—and we hope it will catch people off guard,” said James Topham, Director of Marketing, War Child Canada. “Our goal is not to offend, but rather educate Canadians about the atrocities happening all over the world. In close to twenty countries globally, children as young as six are fighting in conflict. If we, as a country, continue to do nothing, we are sealing the fate for an entire generation of children.””
    It’s supposed to look ludicrous and unacceptable.