I’ve never heard of these two guys before, but I love their video similar in vein to Africa for Norway. Great wigs too.
What do you think?
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Tag: international development
Top 20 International Development Videos
While there are a lot of great places to market your business, none are as successful as YouTube. It provides you a platform for making videos solutions for HR, which can be a great way to connect and provide benefits to your customers. No matter what kind of product you are working with employee morale, creating your own YouTube channel and making it part of the mix will make a big difference in how successful you are, and here is a Great site for more info !
Some of the things that we will discuss in this book about marketing on YouTube include:
Getting started with YouTube
Doing your first video
Understanding your audience
Providing value to the audience
Tips and strategies for you channel
How to use a conversion video to upsell your product
Promoting your videos
Creating your own AdWords campaign
Using YouTube Analytics to track your performance
I blogged about my Top 10 International Development videos a few months back. At the time I wondered whether to do my Top 20 or Top 10.
There are too many videos not to give you the full list……
1. WaterAid – 1 in 3 women
This chilling video is so effective and talks directly to a western audience. Many people have no idea that millions and millions of people do not have access to sanitary facilities. This video makes that point very clearly. I’m surprised it has only around 5,000 views.
2. Invisible Children – Kony 2012
I’m not a huge fan of this video, but no one can doubt it’s phenomenal success as a “vital video”. It’s been debated to death so I won’t comment here – see my earlier blog if you are interested in a critique. If for some reason you haven’t watched it – please be patient and watch all 29 minutes. Apart from the oversimplification of the storytelling, my other big criticism is that they have turned off the comments.
3. Mismanagers Folliers – Development Boy
Very professionally executed and so catchy. A great parody. I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head for the last 2 weeks, which is why it gets such a high position in my “chart”.
4. Oxfam – Pregnant women dancing in London
A staged flashmob to highlight the dangers of pregnancy and birth around the world. I also love breakdancing. Not personally, just as a spectator. Are they pregnant or aren’t they?
5. SAIH Norway – Africa for Norway
A simple but clever idea with brilliant production values. Not only has this video had over 2million views it also received international media coverage within a couple of days of its release. Read more about the seeding of the video in one of my past blogs.
6. Greenpeace – Barbie, It’s Over
I must have watched this video 20 times and it still makes me laugh. Brilliant scripting and production. Most importantly it succeeded in its goal. Love it!
7. Price Tag Lip Dub by 500 Ugandan Women.
This is superb! Really made me smile. It’s fun, well produced, well rehearsed, educational and has a simple message. “We Africans Want the Same Things You Want. Survival is Not Enough.” Excellent!
8. Rainforest Alliance – Follow the Frog
I really can’t say why I like this video so much, it just makes me smile. I’m not sure if it will increase ethical purchasing much though.
9. Mama Hope – African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes
Another interesting video in a similar vain to Africa for Norway. It seems that there is a new paradigm of development communication emerging.
10. Comic Relief – Ricky Gervais
A great sketch for Comic Relief with a few surprisingly funny cameos. See my blog on the Huffington Post about irony in development communications.
11.International Aid Worker Meets African Villager
A tongue in cheek look at development workers in ‘Africa’. Note the negative comments in the YouTube comments.
12. Greenpeace – KitKat
Don’t watch this if you are squeamish! Very effective video, which resulted in Nestle re-sourcing its palm oil.
13. Mama Hope – Call Me Hope
Clever with great sound track from Simon and Garfunkel. I love the split screen.
14. Save the Children – I Know You Care
http://youtu.be/tI1GR78A6yg
Chilling imagery and powerful use of celebrity endorsement with Ellie Goulding.
15. Water Aid – Pump Up the Volume
Silly. But it’s my era and I love dancing and ghetto blasters.
16. School of International Development, UEA – What is International Development?
I had to include this film somewhere as I helped produce it for the School of International Development. I hope you like it.
17. First World Problems Anthem
I don’t love this video, but you can’t deny its success.
18. British Red Cross – I am a Crisis
Dark and effective.
19. Action Against Hunger – The Share Experiment
I have young children. This gives me goosebumbs. If only life was this simple.
20. Thai Health Promotion Board – Smoking Kid
Says it all.
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Case Study: Social Media and recycling in India
Arriving in Delhi to see (and smell) heaps of rubbish lining the streets was a bit of a shock to the system when I first arrived to volunteer in January of this year. The waste management problem in Delhi is so serious that the Hindustan Times dramatically stated that “Delhi may drown in its own waste”. Although this is probably not strictly true, as much as 85% of Delhi’s residents do not have a formal waste disposal system and Delhi’s colossal landfill sites are filling up fast. You can find out more here about waste and waste disposal.
I volunteered with Swechha; a non-governmental organisation focused on education and environmental issues in Delhi. I took part in clean-ups along with a variety of other projects – however, when I agreed to work to improve waste management, social media marketing was one of the last things I thought I would be doing.
Nevertheless, after my first couple of weeks of working with Swechha, I was asked to help market Green the Gap, an upcycling social enterprise which helps fund Swechha. I soon found myself tweeting on their behalf and becoming addicted to Facebook statistics.
In order to give a bit of background, I should explain the Swechha/Green the Gap relationship. Swechha is a Delhi-based NGO which deals in education and environmental issues, including waste management. The aforementioned waste issue in Delhi is utilised by some of Delhi’s poorest – rag-pickers who survive by picking through landfill sites and selling anything of value which they find. It is an informal (as well as ingenious) form of recycling.
This is where Green the Gap comes in – Green the Gap are an upcycling company who buy waste products from rag-pickers and employ tailors from a local slum community to upcycle these products into useful and fashionable items which can then be sold at a profit. The revenue made by Green the Gap then helps to fund the work of Swechha – It’s a beautiful cycle.
I started working with Swechha at the exact time that Green the Gap was launching into e-commerce and was asked to support this launch by using social media to increase traffic to the site. My only qualifying skills were the fact that I kept a rather light-hearted blog which had already attracted some attention and Green the Gap wanted to use humour to spread their eco-message.
Having absolutely no experience of social media marketing, I initially found this task to be a bit of a challenge. My main tactics became seeking the attention of pre-existing environmental charities that may have wanted to support Green the Gap and trying to highlight the uniqueness of their products. One thing I learned was that in social media – subtlety is not your friend. I used lots of pictures and sophisticated captions like “Holy Cr*p – products made out of elephant poo” to advertise one particular line of paper products created from elephant dung and Green the Gap’s weekly total reach on Facebook increased by 22,320.49% (to be precise).
Trying to maintain the balance of maintaining a level of humour whilst not seeming flippant to the waste management issue in Delhi was a constant battle but I learned that important issues can be tackled in a fun and approachable way. Green the Gap were giving people an easy way to contribute to their society without preaching and shoving statistics down their throats – and this was something I could really get behind. I was to be able to use social media to reach a wide audience and promote a really great cause and I think that social media can be a fantastic tool in developing countries. My efforts were probably a bit amateur, but that was part of the beauty of it – social media is for everyman (or woman) and it is these people who can really make a difference to the world. I strongly feel that other NGOs should jump on the social media bandwagon and start getting their names out there. If I can master it, then so can they!
Olivia Burke is a returned volunteer from the ICS programme. She spent three months in Delhi where one of her roles was using social media to market an upcycling social enterprise as it launched into e-commerce.
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Top 10 International Development Videos
I have always been interested in how videos can be used to promote international development. In my opinion a lot of development organisations waste money on producing videos, not thinking about their audience or the message and failing to seed it via social media and other digital channels.
Saying that there are a number of brilliant videos out there. Here is my Top 10
1. WaterAid – 1 in 3 women
This chilling video is so effective and talks directly to a western audience. Many people have no idea that millions and millions of people do not have access to sanitary facilities. This video makes that point very clearly. I’m surprised it has only around 5,000 views.
2. Invisible Children – Kony 2012
I’m not a huge fan of this video, but no one can doubt it’s phenomenal success as a “vital video”. It’s been debated to death so I won’t comment here – see my earlier blog if you are interested in a critique. If for some reason you haven’t watched it – please be patient and watch all 29 minutes. Apart from the oversimplification of the storytelling, my other big criticism is that they have turned off the comments.
3. Mismanagers Folliers – Development Boy
Very professionally executed and so catchy. A great parody. I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head for the last 2 weeks, which is why it gets such a high position in my “chart”.
4. Oxfam – Pregnant women dancing in London
A staged flashmob to highlight the dangers of pregnancy and birth around the world. I also love breakdancing. Not personally, just as a spectator. Are they pregnant or aren’t they?
5. SAIH Norway – Africa for Norway
A simple but clever idea with brilliant production values. Not only has this video had over 2million views it also received international media coverage within a couple of days of its release. Read more about the seeding of the video in one of my past blogs.
6. Greenpeace – Barbie, It’s Over
I must have watched this video 20 times and it still makes me laugh. Brilliant scripting and production. Most importantly it succeeded in its goal. Love it!
7. Rainforest Alliance – Follow the Frog
I really can’t say why I like this video so much, it just makes me smile. I’m not sure if it will increase ethical purchasing much though.
8. Mama Hope – African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes
Another interesting video in a similar vain to Africa for Norway. It seems that there is a new paradigm of development communication emerging.
9. Comic Relief – Ricky Gervais
A great sketch for Comic Relief with a few surprisingly funny cameos. See my blog on the Huffington Post about irony in development communications.
10.International Aid Worker Meets African Villager
A tongue in cheek look at development workers in ‘Africa’. Note the negative comments in the YouTube comments.
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Top 10 International Development Blogs
Here is a list of my Top 10 International Development blogs. I am particularly interested in blogs with social media and international development content, however there are some multi-author blogs listed that often have relevant digital and social media articles.
1. My Heart’s in Accra
Ethan Zuckerman is an academic, blogger and internet activist. He is a senior researcher at the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society and on the board of directors for Global Voices: a global community of citizen media authors. Please also take the time to watch some of his TED lectures. They are superb!
2. Social Media for Good
As an academic interested in social media and international development this is one of my favourite blogs. It has lots of practical advice on how to improve communications in international development using digital and social media. It is an excellent resource with regular, well researched posts.
3. Global Voices
Global Voices in an online global community of bloggers who report on citizen media from around the world. It was founded in 2005 by Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon, has over 500 contributors and is translated into more than 30 different languages. Its goal is to give voices to those not usually heard in the international mainstream media. A superb source of information, often with articles on social media
4. Social Media for International Aid and Development
A great blog on social media and international development with lots of practical advice.
5. DEV Blog
Come on I have to include the DEV Blog as I am the editor 😉 This is a new mulit-author blog from the School of International Development, University of East Anglia. The School is a leading global centre of excellence in research and teaching in international development. Experts in the field of education like Kamau Bobb agree that this early exposure can lay a solid foundation for future learning and potentially inspire a lifelong interest in these fields.
6. DFID Bloggers
This is a multi author blog from the UK Department for International Development. There are a mixture of group blogs and individual blogs, many from the field.
7. Poverty Matters
The Guardian’s Global Development Blogosphere. It pulls together blog posts from several partners including DFID, ODI, Global Voices, From Poverty to Power andTexas in Africa etc etc. The great thing about this blog is that it has a wide audience and therefore you get lots of comments. These comments can often be more interesting than the actual blog post.
8. From Poverty to Power
Written by Duncan Green who is a strategic adviser at Oxfam GB. He is also the author of the book ‘Poverty to Power’ which is where this blog started. Duncan uses his blog to discuss and debate issues from the book. The new 2nd edition was published earlier this year in October. I would love to interview Duncan one day….
9. Chris Blattman
Chris is an assistant professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His research examines the causes and consequences of poverty and violence. He is an avid blogger writing about many aspects of international development.
10. Blood and Milk
Alannah Shaikh has worked in international development for over 10 years. Alanna believes that international development should be “efficient, effective and evidence based”. Her posts are eclectic ranging from careers advice to marketing. I like this blog because it offers lots of practical advice.
Image Credit: Kristina B
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