In a time when everything revolves around profit, corporate growth and return on investment, it’s good to see a campaign that goes beyond the obligatory corporate social responsibility gambit. But that’s exactly what Coca-Cola’s ‘Crazy for Good’ campaign seems to do.
And thank goodness this agency, Draftfcb, refrains from ‘talking down’ to its market – yes, it’s predominantly a youth market, but gladly they didn’t spell it “kraz-E 4 gud” or some other form of text-speak.
The campaign is all about ‘passing it on’ – people who perform random acts of kindness for the good of society. It’s not a centralised, coordinated effort – rather it revolves around real-life stories that feature people doing a wide range of thingsto benefit their fellow human beings. This is what is so cool about this campaign – it is just about ordinary Joes and Janes with a passion which they use to beneficially impact on the people around them.
This global campaign, which was developed at Ogilvy Brazil, Sao Paulo, highlights these special, giving people, like Zainab Imran, the Pakistani musician who sings and plays at her local children’s ward… despite the fact that she’s visually impaired. What motivates her to give up four days a week to perform for children? “When I sing,” she says, “I feel that the children forget that they are unwell. When they sing and clap their hands, I forget that I’m unable to see.”
Then there’s San Franciscan Jeff Waldman, who installed swings all over his city, just for the heck of it. He was given a $1000 grant by the city of Los Angeles to do the same there; then he ran a Kickstarter fund to hang swings all over Bolivia. They hung them from trees, buildings, rocky outcrops, and even in the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt pan in the world.
