By Malay Desai
From: Norway, by Try/Apt
A Norwegian NGO that works to protect rainforests across the world has launched an interactive campaign asking Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo to get a haircut. The film of the interactive campaign directly speaks with Ronaldo, firstly apologizing to ‘hear about the World Cup’ (his team’s loss). It then states that a rainforest the size of a football field is chopped down every third second but there are still more web searches about footballers’ haircuts than deforestation. By saying ‘Trees don’t grow back, hair does’, it further appeals to Ronaldo to cut his hair to spread awareness as the national team, club teams and some politicians have already done the needful. A URL displayed toward the end leads to more details on the campaign.
Why we like ?
Tongue, meet cheek. As we wind up on a whirlwind season of football-pegged marketing, we have a spot from a Norwegian agency whose works of dry humour we have featured here in the past.
Google search results have been the metrics of popularity from a decade or so, but are being used to sell ideas only from the past few years. They may not be the most accurate ways to perceive an issue, but truth be said, a digital footprint of a person/issue says much about how many people are talking about it. The irony being played upon here is that ‘rainforest deforestation’ gets lesser hits and ‘Ronaldo + hair’, giving the cause a good lever to project a hammer at us.
The plan is ambitious, newsworthy and best of all, doesn’t cost a single krone. Through the World Cup, players from Norway were buzzed and filmed to raise awareness, so were politicians, fans and club players. But we suppose the fillip for this idea might have been the news of Ronaldo getting a zig-zag haircut as solidarity for a young cancer patient. The story was never confirmed (smart PR campaign, we assume) but it led to reams of press. Then, Portugal was knocked out and this campaign happened.
The Rainforest Foundation is looking to land a big whale here, and by simply mentioning the name of the world’s top footballer (again, if you go by Google hits and social media fans), it’s driving attention to its site – rainforestcut.com. It’s been 12 days or so and we don’t see any response from Ronaldo but if he were to get a haircut at some point anyway, the ‘event’ is likely to make news. Worth it!
Looking locally, a top cricketer can, by mundane acts, make quite an impact to the dozens of environmental crises we live with everyday – Delhi’s pollution, Yamuna’s waste, Goa’s mining or even a simple cause like rainwater harvesting. If the cricketers wish (well some super-busy actors cannot even if they wish to), every single haircut could bring in a new wave. CC – Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
To watch this film, feed this link into your browser ~bit.ly/July14ad
SOCIAL NEWSFEED
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