May 11, 2011
Heading to OpenGovWest this weekend
By
Katherine Dodds
Heading off to OpenGovWest this weekend in Portland to be on a marketing panel. Check out the full schedule here.There is still time to register!
When asked to be part of this conference by the organizer Sarah Schacht who I met a few years ago at Hollyhock i began to think about Hello Cool World and what we might have to do with the idea of 'open government'. As it happens, of late our main clients are government agencies. The work we are doing would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.
Specifically we are creating grassroots campaigns, that engage real people as advocates using all the lovely tools social media now has to offer. And we manage databases that intersect issues and encourage involvment. Plus our websites don't look at all like the standard issue government fare. Two examples of this are the LACE Campaign we created for BC Cancer Agency, Cervical Cancer Screening Program, and our most recent is the I Have Immunity campaign for ImmunizeBC. We've also been doing some interesting work with BC Transplant, as official distributors of the film 65_RedRoses.
Reflecting lately about many campaigns, there are some things that eveything we do shares:
• A single branded URL uniting many parties around a rallying point, and providing the foundation for the other social media outreach efforts
• a web sign up to a cause-focused database that allows promotion for like-minded projects to be send to a built-in audience
• The concept of co-promotion as central to the social branding
• Making available customizable materials
So, when I say 'unthinkable' a few years ago, I am actually thinking back to my early days with the company when we had a government client, and where the essence of the work we wanted to do was lost and the effectiveness diminished by their need to control all aspects of the brand and marketing.
Times, it appears have changed.
As I attend this confernce I'll reflect on our ongoing projects -- we head into year two of LACE Campaign. (For BC Cancer Agency)
We just launched I Have Immunity, with the help of our friends at Social Signal (for Immunize BC)
And as we enter new territory as distributors for 65_RedRoses, our relationship with BC Transplant and their "Live Life.Pass it On". camapign is becoming a showcase of what we can do with co-promotion for the cause, and how to sustain campaigns along the way.
I look forward to deepening my thinking about the models for engagement and the opportunities during this conference!
Hope to see you in Portland!
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Check out all the speakers at OpenGovWest!
Bio: Katherine Dodds – Founder/ Creative Director of Hello Cool World
Katherine Dodds, AKA “Kat”, got her advertising chops with the anti-consumer magazine Adbusters, and learned to run a company by making the critically acclaimed documentary The Corporation an international grassroots and box office success —demonstrating a commitment to social outcome uncommon in the big bad ad world! Current projects see her taking on alternative “fair trade” distribution with the film 65_RedRoses, which follows the inspiring story of Eva Markvoort as she battles CF and waits on the transplant list for new lungs (65_RedRoses is soon to have it’s US launch on the Oprah Winfrey Network). She has also been the mastermind behind the first social media public health campaign of its kind with BC Cancer Agency — Live Aware. Create Empowerment: LACEcampaign.com (around Pap testing), and has just developed a brand new campaign last month for ImmunizeBC of the BC Centre For Disease Control — IHaveImmunity.com.
Longer bio.
Kat's personal blog can be found at www.KatherineDodds.com
Tag(s):
health promotion,
Health/Health Advocacy,
Katherine Dodds,
OpenGovWest
Recent Blogs by Katherine Dodds:
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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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