Personal Democracy Forum – JibJabbing the Drug Industry

JibJabbing the Drug Industry
By Kate Kaye, 03/17/2005 - 12:25am

Could the JibJab hype actually have any real bearing on politics or public policy? A new animation from Consumers Union for its Prescription for Change campaign against big pharma could be a symptom of the potential impact of silly cartoons on political activism.

As was apparent at last week's Politics Online Conference in DC, the popular animated poli-celeb spoofs created by the accidentally famous JibJab Studios, has had a lot of folks in the poltical campaign arena...uh...jibber-jabbering (couldn't resist). I'll admit, every time I hear somebody refer to their big viral Web hit, "This Land," in the context of political campaigning, I can't help but roll my eyes. Even at the PO Conference, a panel moderator asked whether humorous Web animations will be the future of political advertising.

Wha? It wasn't the political content that spurred the eruptive viral response to the cartoon as much as it was its dismissal of the tense, politically-charged pre-election atmosphere. More important, it was the humor (not to mention the accompaniment of a recognizable All-American ditty) that really brought on the buzz. Once CNN and Jay Leno caught on, the media frenzy moved from word-of-mouth to word-of-chin (haha). Anyway, until now, I pretty much blew it off as a fad that may have exhibited the power of viral marketing, but wouldn't have much ability to get people seriously interested in a political issue or candidate.

Maybe I was wrong. Consumers Union has launched a campaign employing a light-hearted animation featuring a cutesy, folksy tune. It's essentially a send-up of the drug industry created to promote CU's Prescription for Change campaign which petitions viewers to "Tell Congress to make drugs safer NOW! Listen to our new song, and send a serious message to Congress!"

So, it's the ol' bait and switch: suck 'em in with humor, then slap 'em with some reality and hope they'll send an automated email to their Congressman to support the FACT Act sponsored by Senators Dodd and Grassley.

Well, it's a try. Honestly, I'm not sure this is the best means of rallying people around an issue in any dedicated way, but it might help attract the attentions of the ADD-addled, ritalin-popping American public. If anything, it's bound to spur some press which I'm sure is part of the strategy in the first place.

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Yeah, but it's not any good.

I do think a flash bit that's funny, fast-paced, and hard-hitting can generate plenty of viral buzz, but that prescription for change ditty just isn't very good. It's not funny, the opening is slow, and what's with rendering it as a fuzzy video file? If you're making toons, we got the perfect format for that - Flash.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm generally known in my circles as 'the guy who hates flash' - but it's great for cartoons.)

Two great, fast-paced, funny, and hard-hitting examples:

"Three Peas in a Pod" from Death With Dignity

"Oreos Starring Ben Cohen" by True Majority

(I had nothing to do with either of these.)

By karichisholm at Tue, 03/22/2005 - 01:08 | email this page

CU Video Very Effective!

While I agree that the CU video would have been better in Flash, the facts contradict that it isn't "good". Since it's release three weeks ago, it has been watched by over a half million people. It generated well over 75,000 letters to Congress. The New York Times has written two stories about it -- both with pictures of the fuzzy little pill(front page of the Science Times and the Week in Review). The Today Show ran a substantial clip of it. Well over 100 bloggers have written about it. Members of Congress working on the issue have commented on it. It has recruited a substantial number of people into the campaign to fix this problem. Over 30,000 people downloaded the MP3 file of the song. All of this for a fairly moderate price tag. Very, very few animations have had that success.

By all accounts, this success is because it is funny. As we tell all of our clients, "you are not your target audience." Believe me I am not the target market, I did think it was funny, but I really dislike like country and western music!

(I was involved with outreach of this video, but hope the facts override any bias because of ties to the project.)

By pabloward at Fri, 03/25/2005 - 10:58 | email this page

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