At 17.03 today, Provokateur pressed the button on The Elders website, re-launching the world wide web presence for this remarkable organistion, founded by Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel.
Provokateur has worked for some pretty amazing clients, but our work for The Elders, an organisation that brings together Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, Jimmy Carter, Muhammad Yunus and Gro Brundtland - to name but five of the ten Elders - has been a unique privilege.
The website will be their main tool for communicating with the world. To celebrate the launch, the first online event is a live webchat with Desmond Tutu on July 8th, which Provokateur will be assisting with.
In the current climate of MP’s expenses, sizzling planets and plunging economies, has arrived 38 Degrees, an exciting grassroots campaigning initiative just launched in the UK.
Modelled on Move On in the US, 38 Degrees will give people the campaigning tools to make sure they’re heard, ensuring people have a voice that can’t be ignored.
Provokateur has worked with the organisation from its inception, creating the brand and designing its communications. We’ve also created a rather natty animation which sits on 38 Degrees site itself.
On 10th November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by the Nigerian government for campaigning against the environmental devastation of the Niger Delta by Shell and other oil companies.
Provokateur, working with roving creative director Brian Cooper, created a punchy full page ad for Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Roddick Foundation and others, published in today’s Guardian.
Provokateur takes the whole subject of ethical communications quite seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we’ve made a little book on the subject. It’s called Change The World and it’s available both in print and online.
As with most Provokateur ventures, it’s been a small labour of love - so we hope you like. Please spread it around, pass it on and tell folk about it.
But first, take a peak by clicking on the viewer below.
Provokateur has been appointed by The Elders to help develop their online communications.
It would ne no exaggeration to describe The Elders as one of the most remarkable organisations on the planet - although the word ‘organisation’ is a bit misleading. It’s not an organisaion in a traditional sense so much as a group of eminent global leaders convened by Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel to bring their experience and independent voices to the resolution of conflict and to the alleviation of human suffering.
The opportunity to work for an organisation that includes within its company Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan and Aung San Suu Kyi is both thrilling and daunting. We’ll keep you posted.
One of Provokateur’s favourite clients, Global Witness, today unveiled their latest no-punches-pulled report, Undue Diligence. It examines the banking industry’s rather careless approach to doing business with corrupt regimes, dictatorships and other nasty types, and calls for a new system of diligence and regulation in international banking. Sounds familiar.. those poor bankers are getting it from all angles these days eh? Provokateur was proud to do some cracking creative work to help bring the report to life, which in turn revealed Darren’s talents as an artistist of distinction in the illustration of pigs.
Award, Shmaward - yes yes, it’s just back slapping, industry nonsense. But we’re still pretty proud to have two Provokateur enterprises nominated as finalists at the Green Awards - and then to win one of them.
Although Acme Climate Action was pipped at the post (We wuz robbed!), Tap was awarded Best Green Integrated Campaign. And just so you don’t think we’re making it up, we took a picture to prove it.
Oh, and the judges said Tap won ‘hands down’, and that made us glow a bit.
But don’t worry, it won’t go to our heads. Awards are nice enough, but we’ve got a campaign to run here - and things are just going to get bigger and better.
We’re cracking open the special occasion biscuits here at Provokateur, as we just got the news that our two self-initiated projects have been shortlisted for the prestigious Green Awards in November. We Want Tap has been nominated for Best Integrated Campaign, and our Acme website www.acmeclimateaction.com has also been shortlisted for Best Website. We’re currently on the lookout for a job-lot of barely-used tuxedos and evening gowns, something in pale blue might be nice, any offers?
Everyone likes birthdays, anniversaries and special dates, don’t they?
Well, here’s one for the calendar. From August 1st, we officially (well, as officially as it comes) have One hundred months to save the planet. One hundred months to pull our fingers out and get serious.
Provokateur produced the newspaper ads and the website to mark the occasion. But don’t waste time lighting candles - it’s time to get busy!
Monday 16th June, 2008 is a day that will go down in history. Well, maybe not history in a grand sense, but certainly Provokateur’s history.
On Gabriel’s Wharf on the South Bank, Provokateur unveiled the Tap brand and launched the Tap Challenge. We asked people to take a blind taste test of tap water versus 4 brands of bottled water. Guess what? 30% of people thought Evian was tap water, while 84% failed to identify tap water at all. The point, as if it even needs spelling out, is that people can’t tell the difference. So why are we spending £2billion a year on bottled water?
Anyhoo, Tap is now officially on the road and making waves. The Facebook group has 700 members now and the Tap website is attracting a satisfying level of interest.
You can find out a lot more about Tap, bottled water and our campaign at www.wewanttap.com. Pop by, say hello and help spread the word.
Just launched the new Acme Climate Action holding page.
This is just a taste of what the Acme Climate Action website will look like. If you thought the book was an ambitious little project, wait for the website! Lots of feisty tricks and treats and, as the name promises, plenty to get people active.
The gloves are off, the gauntlet thrown, the line crossed, and the buck has finally stopped: Tap is here - and we’ve got the bottled water industry in our sights.
Our first product will hit the market in a few weeks, but we wanted to start spreading the word. And we’d ask you to do the same. It’s time to get people off the bottle and onto Tap.
This is an important step for Provokateur, moving from being just a creative agency into being an agency driving its own innovation and enterprise. Tap is a Provokateur production, part of our commitment to making change happen.
Get in touch to find out more. And be sure to visit www.wewanttap.com.
For all those running websites and blogs out there, please link to the Tap website too. It’s time to make some noise!
In association with Belu, Provokateur is proud to be launching its very own campaign against the bottled water industry with a product of its own.
TAP’s the name and soon you’ll be able to buy Tap’s re-usable water bottles that as well as being hot-to-trot, and carbon neutral, will also raise money for water projects.
It’s an enterprise of our own and opens up a new direction for us as an agency that wants to do a bit more than designing other people’s stuff. In conjunction with Acme Climate Action, another Provokateur project, we’ve got a pretty cool summer ahead.
It’ll be a month or so before bottles are available, but the web site is up and running (kind of) and we will shortly be launching our first range of Tap products.
Check it out and drop us a line if you want to find out more. We’ve got some very cool partners in the offing and if everything goes according to plan we’ll be quenching people’s thirst, and causing mischief, throughout the summer! There’ll be updates soon enough, but we’re too excited about this new branch of enterprise to keep it to ourselves.
Provokateur has been working with Car Plus, Transport for London and individual car club operators to create a brand and marketing campaign for this genuinely great enterprise.
Car clubs give people all the benefits of owning a car, without, well, owning it. As the strapline says, it’s pay-as-you-go cars, with cars only 5 or ten minutes away. The brand is appearing on road signs, is bieng used and promoted by local authorities and will be shared by indidual car club operators.
If ever there was an idea to demonstrate how much smarter green living can be, this is it. Just the kind of client we love.
With the branding done, Provokateur did the marketing campaign, currently appearing on buses, billboards and online. Visit http://www.carclubs.org.uk/ and drop us a line if you’d like to find out more.
The publication date of Acme Climate Action is now getting closer everyone.
4th Estate have confirmed that we will be printing 25,000 copies for a June launch. And to celebrate, and communicate, and informicate etc, we produced a little film to let the world know what Acme Climate Action is all about.
Click on the pic above to see the film.
We hope you like, especially since making it nearly burnt down our studio!
OOOPS! Surely we meant Provokateur, the design and communications agency for ethical and charity clients? Sadly so. And sadly, some folk are still having difficulty finding ‘Provokateur with a ‘K”. So here’s another helpful link that might improve Googleability. Apologies for such shameless abuse of the indiosyncracies of the Google search engine, but hey hoo, every little helps.
Following our last Liberty post, the Government has finally put forward proposals to up the number of days any one of us can be held for detention without charge to a splendid 42. That would make us world leaders on the How Long Can You Be Held With Being Charged league table. Naysayers criticise Britain for failing to make its mark in the world, but this is one league table we certainly lead the way in.
This ad is one of a series we have produced for Liberty and is running in today’s Guardian. Nice, simple and to the point. By focusing on the remarkable excess of the Government’s proposals, and the extent to which we dwarf any other country, we hope to get people thinking about the issue in a new way.
