Update: it’s for sale on itunes or you can get the video from the Silent Single site

Here’s an idea. Buy 2 minutes of silence for the bargain price of £1 and contribute to the British Legion Poppy appeal. This is a brilliant idea to complement the annual sale of poppies and from the stars in this teaser video video, it’s well supported. As well as raising money, the team behind it want to get the single to the top of the charts. As it’s now supported by The Sun, they may have a chance. The campaign has a simple page to buy the track and is also being promoted through the Facebook Poppy Single page. Go on, pre-buy it now.

(Disclosure: the originator of this idea is a friend…)

BlogWorld Expo is taking place in Las Vegas, meaning you have a huge concentration of people with a large online presence. This is the perfect time and group for a brand trying to get some social media marketing off the ground and there’s been a few attempts. But non are quite as audacious is the plan from Everywhere , who hatched an idea to raise some money for charity at the same time as breaking a Guinness World Record.

The cause is cancer, with the money going to a group of cancer charities from a research group through to care group. The money raised is being donated by Coors Miller Light and eBay/Paypal, who will give 1cent for every mention of the hashtag #beatcancer across Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Its an interesting idea that has taken off well – it does not take too many people starting a trend like this for it to be picked up.

The mentions are being monitored and counted over at Beat Cancer Everywhere, which displays a random selection and gives you the tools to get the message out easily and quickly to your networks. But I think easy is the correct term. It’s too easy just to add a tag to a tweet. There are ways of donating directly on the page, but it does not seem as though are being taken up very often; also by my calculations, they’ve raised just over $1400 so far from mentions, maybe not as much as expected.

I think this is a great idea, using the networks to get everyone thinking about a cause. It’s worked well and the awareness looks high. But it’s not necessarily the best way of driving donations as it’s too easy to write a quick update and reckon that’s your charitable donations sorted for the month. The best ways of raising real money require direct action, not passive tweets. The #blamedrewscancer is another hashtag for awareness, although in here there are a lot of drives to raise money with direct action, including trying to ‘sell’ the Twitter name Drew to Drew Carey for $1m.

So join in the hashtag frenzy, posting it as often as you can and raise awareness. But also go out and donate directly, either to the charities specifically mentioned or to your local ones (can I suggested Cancer Research Uk?)

Ghana is the heart of Cadbury Dairy Milks Fairtrade Cocoa and so the track celebrates all things Ghanaian: its people, its rappers, its dancers, its cultural figures and, of course, its cocoa beans.

Next up, here’s a very silly Spanish(?) video for Doritos

Weirdly, the highest ranking video last week was for DHL, although considering it only has 3635 views, something tells me there’s a little wonkiness in the algorithm. I put it last in the last as it is pretty boring!

The RSPCA have recently launched a campaign to remind you about your Animal Welfare Footprint, a deliberate reference to the carbon footprint. Through a combination of online advertising (Lateral) and social media outreach (Immediate Future), they are looking to raise the profile of their new site.

The ads take a look at a common situations to see of you can spot the ‘problem’.

Clicking through takes you to the site, where you can take a quiz to test your own awareness.

The quiz gives you tips to reduce your footprint, reminding you of all the areas of your life that potentially has an impact on animals. You can also go to their YouTube channel, their Facebook page, which is a more general group not specific to the campaign. There’s also links out to other campaigns, such as the one about Supporting Chicken Welfare.

What I think

I like all the bits, but I’m a little underwhelmed here. For me, there’s a lack of consistency across the elements, even within the one campaign. I love the creative on the online ads and was disappointed when I hit the site not to find that continued. The site itself is very nice, especially the way you move through the quiz. But overall, I’m finding that there is a disconnect; I think I’d like to be able to easily see if I’m on an RSPCA site without looking for the logo.

This part of the campaign is using social media as a marketing tool, but the RSPCA do foster 2 way, longer term, dialogue through their Facebook page, with over 100k members and are continuously looking for new ways to connect with their supporters. I look forward to seeing how they do.

Watch the above ad, then go take a look at the Computer Tan site. Have you done, have you seen the brilliant products they’re offering and did you take up their free offer? I so want the mobile version.

I hope you weren’t taken in, that you know that the whole product is a complete hoax? It’s actually part of a campaign from SKCin, the Karen Clifford Skin Cancer Charity.

Their aim is to raise the profile of skin cancer in the country, a disease that kills 5 people in the UK everyday. They’re looking to attract the attention of people who wouldn’t necessarily seek out information, moving away from the straight information driven sites to something a little more fun. The risk of skin cancer can be reduced by following sensible tanning guidelines, so it hits the right spot.

I like this, the video and site are both well done, hitting that slightly cheesy infomercial spot right in the centre. They’ve got online banners and a more traditional PR campaign as well. The reach out has been done well, evidenced by the number of sites where the video is appearing. It’s all been done for free by Rubber Republic and other agencies – a great set of ideas.

They’ve also got this widget with a daily word test from Nicholas Parsons – do you know what he knows? Take it and have ago at improving your vocabulary.

This is a nice little social responsibility campaign for a dictionary company; the right charity connection, some celebrity endorsement and tools that all fit in with the core product, that of words.

Brazil continues to like its ads, with this one from HSBC. I’m not what the exact message is, but I think it’s advertising their Christmas website.

Finally a fun cartoon from the RSPCA with a serious message (even if it does contain a fart joke). It’s about animal obesity, all part of their campaign to Give Animals a Voice

The site allows you to buy gifts from multiple charities, depending on your choice of cause, both home and abroad, with prices ranging from $1 up to $1000s, so perfect to give something to someone else this year no matter what your budget. The site is clean, crisp and looks like it works well.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Oxfam offer something similar with their Oxfam Unwrapped store, available all year round. Same idea, with multiple types of gifts although all for the same charity. I prefer the design of this site, it feels a lot warmer with the oranges, although there must be something about green and charities as both sites have green as the base colour.

There’s a big difference in the checkout procedure, with the US site being a lot easier, checkout, tick an option to support the site and then straight to a single page to fill in all your details. With Oxfam, I was asked to create an account first and then presented with 5 pages of forms to click through, a lot harder to get through. I wonder what the respective drop off rates are for the two sites.

The Tube has had a lot of these ads in the last few weeks, in both the big version shown here and the smaller, on-train version. There’s also been TV advertising this weekend, to promote their Christmas appeal in support of Save the Children which starts today..

On The Times site, there’s just a small promo on the front page through to the main appeal section. When you hit this page, I’m quite disappointed. At first glance, there’s no ready explanation and no call to action – this is all to raise money and I have to search for a way to do that.

Compare this to what I see in the browser when I go to the Save the Children page, which is a lot more direct in its call to donate..

So what else does this digital campaign offer us:

• Articles about the conditions in Kingsville, the town at the centre of the appeal, and about Davina McCall’s trip there
• A interactive map, with videos and lots of information, combined with lots of video of Davina in the village.
• An overview of what they are doing
• A general message board to discuss the campaign
• Biographies and updates from the people in the village and ways for you to leave a message for them and receive a reply

It’s all about letting us get to know these people, understand them and empathise them, to raise money in a time where western donors feel the need to save. They’re only asking for a pound though, just a small amount from every Times reader – as the first poster to the message board says:

Credit crunch? this really puts things in perspective.. Let’s hope the children of kingsville get the chance to survive and prosper

I mostly like this campaign, the online and offline interconnectedness, with regular stories in the paper to keep the idea front of mind backed up with information on the site and a way to interact. A good charity digital appeal, nothing too exciting, but solid.