Blogging (29)
By Katherine Dodds On October 15, 2014 | 0 Comments
#Inequality! A topic well worth a
blog day of action. Tonight in Montreal "The Price We Pay" is a relevant film on this topic
One of the lasting legacies of Occupy Wall Street has been the meme the “99%” A sense of injustice that the economic crash exposed unified many individuals and organizations. This sense of profound unfairness, of the depth of inequality we are facing is the activist battle of our times.
And the fight for economic justice will be long and hard. People with power and money do not give it up so easily. They are very good at looking for loopholes. The root cause of so many of the problems we face in the world – poverty, war, and human rights abuses, women's rights, GLTBQ rights, even climate change, all have economic inequality at their core.
This economic injustice and the outrage it rightly causes in so many people, is at the root of a great new film by our friend Harold Crooks (The Corporation, Pax Americana) – his new documentary “The Price We Pay” about tax havens just launched to much fanfare at the Toronto and Vancouver Film Festivals. It also screens tonight in Montreal through Cinema Politica.
This day is also the day we are launching our new portfolio site – and we’re choosing to feature the work we've recently done for one of our favorite clients — Inter Pares.
Inter Pares' name means "Among Equals" and they are an organization that takes this very seriously. In fact, it has become their brand! We did a year long branding process for them, doing a communications audit, conducting workshops with staff, surveying their counterparts and donors, and a large survey of the public in both English and French. As an organization that has been around since the 1070’s they needed an update to their image, and tools to tell their story. And theirs is story that needs to be told.
Inter Pares is based in Ottawa. They have long-term relationships with their counterparts -- local and national activist organizations – in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Canada.
Their staff is all paid equally, and instead of staffing offices overseas, they work in support of local groups. They believe, as they say on their new website in “solidarity, not charity as an approach to international cooperation.” Their programs largely focus on six global issues: food sovereignty, women's equality, peace and democracy, economic justice, health and migration.
The challenge we had was to compellingly – and quickly—convey their essence – to distill their 40 year history of working with courageous activists around important and often difficult issues into an image and tagline that will help them gain new supporters in a noisy non-profit climate where everyone is in need of donor dollars.
The new logo, has a hand-made feeling (something our market research told us was important). A calligraphic brush stroke implies the world, it’s blue green colours and gesture bring the north and south together, and their tagline ‘globalize equality’, ‘mondalisier l’égalité’, is the very core of what is at stake. In a world where globalization is causing inequality, poverty, violence and so many of the problems society faces, it’s time to globalize the root cure -- equality is the answer we are all seeking.
We’re really proud that we were able to contribute to the work that Inter Pares is doing. Based on the public’s survey feedback we came up with an illustration style that could be used for their website and other materials that has the same feeling as the logo. These illustrations are based on Inter Pares own photos, and are part of the new website Inter Pares just launched.
We also did a display banner for them and thanks to a donor who paid for the ad space we did a full page ad for them in The Walrus magazine.
Inter Pares is one of the reasons we love our work so much! Together we’ve been able to take the idea what we at Hello Cool World call ‘social branding’ to a whole new level. At it’s core, social branding embodies the idea of equality – a brand, a logo, an image and especially a tagline, should be a tool for collaboration, for telling stories together, not an empty brand promise to simply sell us on business as usual. With Inter Pares, we are able to challenge ‘branding as usual’ and embrace the work that will transform the world.
We encourage you to visit Inter Pares new website and to support the important work they do!
Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of Good Company Communications and HelloCoolWorld.com. Trained in renegade advertising & branding through her work with Adbusters in the '90s, Kat's early induction into the possibilities of the web-world was inspired by the term hypertext, which she immediately found comforting. She is dedicated to cause-related communication and to the development and use of tools that promote democratic processes.
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By Colette On April 22, 2013 | 0 Comments
Help us reach our goal of 5000 boosts by midnight April 25!
Hello Cool World is excited to be working on the media relations for Occupy Love, an inspiring new documentary from award-winning Canadian filmmaker Velcrow Ripper (Scared Sacred, Fierce Light). Occupy Love explores the cultural uprisings of our time from the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring to the European Summer and environmental protests and asks the question, “How could the crisis we are facing become a love story?”.
Check out the trailer HERE.
Occupy Love is being self-distributed by a talented team led by Velcrow and producers Nova Ami and Ian Mackenzie. Their crowd sourced, social media driven approach to distribution is consistent with the theme of the film, which successfully raised $80,000 through the crowd-funding platforms IndieGoGo and Kickstarter!
The global response to the film has been amazing with over 200 grassroots screenings being self-organized by individuals and organizations in over 25 countries, and more being added every day. The largest community screening so far took place in Porto Allegre, Brazil on April 11th attracting a whopping 1,500 attendees!
We look forward to watching the momentum grow!
Occupy Love marks the completion of Velcrow's Fierce Love Trilogy, a twelve-year journey which began with Scared Sacred, named one of Canada’s Top 10 movies of 2004, and winner of the 2005 Genie (Canadian Academy Award) for best feature documentary. It continued with 2008′s award winning Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. (We've got a special to buy both these DVDs on our webstore for 40% off.)
We worked on outreach and DVD production for Scared Sacred. As with our work with The Corporation, and The Take, we've been inspired by how films with a social message, can find audiences and inspire those audiences to action. All these films are available on our webstore, and all our profits go to our campaigns, and now also to the distribution platform for social cause media we are developing. Check out our proposal to CFC's IdeaBOOST program, and please BOOST us, our dream is to better help films like Occupy Love engage with audiences, and to encourage audiences to organize actions as well as screenings.
Occupy Love is a moving, transformative, heartfelt film, featuring Ripper’s signature stunning visuals and rich soundscapes along with interviews from leading visionaries including Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Jeremy Rifkin, bell hooks and Charles Eisenstein.
The Occupy Love US theatrical tour starts Friday, May 3, 2013 in New York City, with screenings and special events to follow in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Seattle.
Coming to Canadian theatres starting June 2013! Check out more screenings and opportunities to get involved after the page break...
Tag(s):
Aboriginal,
Activism & Protests,
Adbusters,
Alternative Economics,
Arts and Culture,
Blogging,
Climate Change,
Distribution,
Environment,
Film Launch,
First Nations,
Hello Cool World,
Local Events and Parties,
Middle East,
Naomi Klein,
Occupy Movement,
Poverty and Economic Justice,
Social Justice,
The Corporation
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Colette joined Hello Cool World team back in 2003 and was a key organizer for The Corporation and The Take's grassroots outreach efforts across North America. After being inspired by the organizing and awareness building potential of the internet and social issue films, she returned to school to study Communications and sharpen her skills. Once graduating, Colette returned to Hello Cool World once again as a grassroots campaign consultant. She is now the Director of Distribution for Hello Cool World's new fair trade distribution arm.
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By Katherine Dodds On March 11, 2013 | 0 Comments
Welcome Wagon + Announcement
From Guest Blogger Maria Martin
Hi everyone!
My name is Maria Martin and I am a new intern at Hello Cool World
headquarters. Similar to my predecessor, Linh Tra, I, too, am a
Nursing student at Vancouver Community College. I am in my fourth year
and currently doing my public health clinical rotation. I am doing a
project for HCW about health promotion as part of my clinical so stay
tuned and curious.
Hello Cool World team will be at the Community Health Associates
Meeting on March 12-14. We are invited to the conference to display
our work with First Nations on health promotions so come by our table
to chat, check out our portfolio, or be part of our live broadcast. We
will be at the helm of the social media component, tweeting and
blogging live. Follow us on Twitter (#CDC2013, #FNHealth) Facebook, or on our site.
We are also doing interviews so this is an opportunity to plug your
work or projects and meet the Hello Cool World team. Anyone attending
feel free to come by our table to learn more about whom we are, what
we do, and what Hello Cool World can do for you or your organizations.
Let’s connect and stay cool. MM
Check out more about Hello Cool World Media projects here.
More about what we are up to at the conference below the break!
Tag(s):
Be The Media,
Blogging,
Chee Mamuk,
First Nations,
health promotion,
Harm Reduction,
Health/Health Advocacy,
Hello Cool Workshops,
Hello Cool World,
HIV AIDS,
HPV,
I Have Immunity
By Colette On September 01, 2011 | 0 Comments
KENSINGTON & HELLO COOL WORLD - STRATEGIC PARTNERS IN HYBRID DISTRIBUTION
I recently had the privilege of meeting with the talented folks over at Kensington Communications that created RAW OPIUM: PAIN PLEASURE PROFITS, one of the documentary projects Hello Cool World has been involved with over the past year.
I was eager to sit down with producer Robert Lang and Kensington’s social media lead Amanda Connon-Unda to get a full update.
Kensington first approached Hello Cool World (HCW) last fall looking for strategy advice on self-distributing their film. In May, we worked with Kensington to host the world premiere of RAW OPIUM at DOXA and to strategize grassroots outreach across North America.
Tag(s):
Hello Cool World,
Strategy,
Blogging,
Film Launch,
Middle East,
geopolitics,
Social Justice,
Poverty and Economic Justice,
Peace and Justice Issues,
Harm Reduction,
health promotion,
Distribution,
Raw Opium,
Arts and Culture
By Colette On April 27, 2011 | 0 Comments
ENTER TO WIN 65_REDROSES TICKETS!
Join the Hello Cool World outreach team at the Ridge Theatre tonight (Wed, April 27) from 7pm-9pm for a special 65_RedRoses screening. We'll be there with our cameras taking photos paparazzi-style, interviewing guests for our blog and promoting the #4Eva Movement For Organ Donation.
Proceeds from the event will go to the Transplant Research Foundation of BC.
Tag(s):
65_RedRoses,
Blogging,
Distribution,
DVD,
Fair Trade DVD Distribution,
Film Launch,
health promotion,
Health/Health Advocacy,
Hello Cool World,
Local Events and Parties,
Media Activism,
Technology
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