Creative analysis of Ogilvy Beijing's "New Citizenship Project: The Inaccessible Textbook"

The public service advertising campaign "New Citizen Plan" launched by Ogilvy in 2009 paid attention to the problem of migrant workers' difficulty in studying and created a large number of outdoor installation works, which attracted the attention of passers-by and received responses from society. The subject matter and creation are excellent, and it has won honors such as the Cannes Silver Lion, the Clio Silver Award, the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival Grand Prix and the Silver Award.

This year's Asia Pacific Advertising Awards awarded the Grand Prize in the Outdoor Category to "New Citizen Project: The Inaccessible Textbook". When conceiving and executing the project, Ogilvy faced the challenge: There are 21 million children in China who have migrated to cities with their migrant parents, and a quarter of these children have no opportunity to receive education. The main creators try to use creativity to win social support and donations for children and make some contributions to help them escape from their plight. People who live and work in Beijing Jianwai SOHO can easily remember that last year there was a row of bookshelves in the SOHO Art Plaza. From a distance, they seemed to be filled with books. When they got closer, they discovered that they were all filled with books. brick. Next to the bookshelf, the slogan "It is difficult for migrant children to study" stimulated and touched the hearts of many viewers. Similar ideas appeared in front of two art museums earlier. The installation in front of Today Art Museum is a huge sphere surrounded by barbed wire. When people approach the sphere, they can see the textbooks at the center of the sphere through the layers of barbed wires, and can understand the difficulty of studying for the children of migrant workers. Helpless; in front of Songzhuang Art Museum, on a circular sand table with a diameter of 10 meters, sharp glass ballasts are densely set up. In the center of the circle, a primary school textbook is quietly placed. Faced with the various inaccessible textbooks in front of them, the audience's nerves were always pricked; many people subsequently donated generously...

In fact, this set of uniquely conceived outdoor public service advertisements was originally only From a simple and quick decision. Lin Guizhi, the chief copywriting director of Ogilvy & Mather Beijing, learned that his agency participated in the "New Citizen Plan" project during a chat with Yang Shitou, the former group business development director of Ogilvy North China. This project was initiated by Narada Charity Foundation with the purpose of improving the growing environment for the children of migrant workers, allowing them to obtain high-quality education, and accepting them to become new citizens of the city. Therefore, Lin Guizhi issued a call to all creative staff of Ogilvy and Mather. "I think this is very meaningful. For disadvantaged groups such as the children of migrant workers, can we mobilize creative people to think of something to help them publicize, and also raise some donations for the children after the publicity is over?" Lin Guizhi said: "The idea is very simple, and the requirements for creative staff are to do whatever they want." She told reporters that as an advertising company, Ogilvy mainly creates commercial advertisements every day. However, they always hope that they can do other creative ideas that will make good contributions to society and public welfare. In addition to taking the lead and calling the shots, Lin Guizhi then finalized the creative concept for this set of advertisements, which is "hard-to-reach textbooks." She said: "It is difficult for these children to study. In fact, owning textbooks has become something far away from them. And the 'hard-to-reach textbooks' are what those children want to express most, but we tell the children through our works What’s in my heart”. At the same time, the four or five creative teams that responded to Lin Guizhi's call also discussed this topic from different angles. For example, some people are concerned about the consequences of children not having books to read. They believe that without reading books that seek knowledge, out-of-school children may be corrupted by violent, pornographic or dark books, and thieves may even become their "teachers." During this process, Yang Yexin, the creative director of Ogilvy & Mather Beijing, and his team came up with the most direct, vivid and intuitive idea - "the hard-to-reach textbook", and thus stood out and completed the final execution along the way< /p>

Yang Yexin and his colleagues have seen many slides reflecting the current situation of the children of migrant workers, and found that in the past, people mainly invested resources and teachers in remote mountainous areas to support rural education. However, compared with rural areas, the education of children of migrant workers in cities has been neglected. Although some children of migrant workers go to school, they are studying in the schools of urban children. They are often discriminated against due to differences in status and feel inferior to others. It is also easy for some abnormal psychological gaps to develop. This prompted Yang Yexin and others to realize the need to build more specialized schools for the children of migrant workers; and in addition to studying, it is best to also solve the daily care problems of the children, so that the parents of the children can work and make money with more peace of mind.

On the one hand, through the Internet and various news, we can learn more about the actual situation of migrant workers' children; on the other hand, Yang Yexin and his team members also put forward their own ideas in the conception of advertising creativity. "There are many ideas to express the theme, but we hope that it will be as easy to understand as possible, including migrant workers, art lovers, intellectuals and ordinary citizens. In addition, it is difficult for the children of migrant workers to study. How difficult is it? We have to find a way to express it in some exaggerated form," Yang Yexin said: "In terms of creativity, we deliberately selected materials that migrant workers often come into contact with in their daily work and life, such as glass, iron wire, bricks, etc., and combined them Regroup." Not only that, but as Lin Guizhi said in an interview: "The first thing is to try not to repeat what others have done." Therefore, Yang Yexin and the creative staff further overcame the previous public service advertisements that often gave people. Treating aid recipients condescendingly and lacking motivation. "We stand in the perspective of migrant workers' children - assuming that we are them and cannot get books - so that the audience can empathize with some of the children's psychological and emotional things," Yang Yexin said: "We are also formal. We avoided the 'big-eyed' style posters such as Project Hope, and instead tried to use three-dimensional and artistic methods." In January and February 2008, the first outdoor advertising installation "Iron Wire Ball" finally appeared in front of the Today Art Museum in Beijing. This was a hard-earned execution. "It is not easy to place this set of advertisements anywhere in Beijing. It is indeed difficult." Lin Guizhi and Yang Yexin told reporters that the approval process for influential venues is cumbersome and it is usually not easy to get approval. Moreover, as a public service announcement, practical issues such as the rent of the venue have to be considered. At this time, Hou Lingxiao, a senior art director who lives in Apple Community, suggested that the Today Art Museum near the community could be used as a venue, and the museum was also exhibiting sculptures at that time. In this way, Yang Yexin and Hou Lingxiao coordinated and secured the first outdoor advertising venue for free. After that, they made several efforts to obtain charity support from Songzhuang Art Museum. Even in Jianwai SOHO, they rented a space for outdoor public service advertisements at a very low cost. Although each promotion lasted only a short week, the three series of advertisements attracted many people, allowing them to once again turn their attention to the most neglected vulnerable group in the city - the children of migrant workers. As a bystander, Yang Yexin said: "The most impressive thing is that through this set of outdoor creativity, many viewers learned for the first time that it is so difficult for the children of migrant workers in the city to study; in the past, their impressions were only that of places like Henan and It is difficult for rural children in remote areas such as Xinjiang and Guizhou to study."

In 2009, at the just-concluded Asia Pacific Advertising Awards selection event, the visual effects and subsequent effects of "New Citizen Project: The Hard-To-Reach Textbook" also shocked the judges present, and therefore Won the grand prize in the outdoor category of ADFEST this year, becoming the highest award received by a Chinese advertising agency at ADFEST. "I think the most noteworthy thing in the creative process is persistence." Lin Guizhi commented on the advantage of Yang Yexin's team: "They stick to the path they have identified." As for the creation itself, Lin Guizhi believes that outdoor advertising is not necessarily limited to In traditional media, as long as the creativity can attract everyone's attention and create effects, there will be no problem. "Good advertising is vital," Lin Guizhi said: "I think this vitality lies in the ability to stimulate thinking after seeing it, people will think about it, and they can also take certain actions from the bottom of their hearts; it is not just nodding and praising. , it’s over.” In the eyes of Lin Guizhi and Yang Yexin, the “hard-to-reach textbook” is not over. "We are doing this project, but the impact is still far from what we expected. Advertising currently only stays in art galleries and certain places, and its effect on society is not enough. Therefore, we are thinking about how to have more impact on what has been done. Further expansion, use more media to make this work have a greater social impact. For example, can it be a real exhibition? Can it be displayed in a landscape in Beijing, Shanghai, etc.? Website or dedicated hotline? Wait." Lin Guizhi and Yang Yexin said: "This is just a trigger, hoping to cause an explosive effect in the future."