Microsofts follies in global marketing

These are images from the Microsoft USA-Business site and Microsoft Poland-Business site.

Microsoft USA


Microsoft Poland


Via Digital Inspiration. Read more about the controversy at Tech Crunch.

Is Google biased against certain nonprofits?

I received the following email about How Google and Social Entrepreneurs Perpetuate the Digital Divide Among Nonprofits. The attention grabbing title caused me to read the entire email which is unusually long. This particular excerpt caught my eye as it relates to advertising.

In the past few years, Google has “given away” $300 million worth of free advertising to nonprofit organizations through Google Grants. Following Google’s value of employee input, Google leaves most of the grantmaking decisions to regular employees. In the United States, Google’s employees are disproportionately White and Asian and from elite schools. These employees then give grants to organizations with interest like theirs and people they know, which most often are also White or Asian and from elite schools.

The advertising industry is not well-known for cultural diversity and this most likely affects advertising campaigns. For example, how would you expect college-educated people who grew up in the suburbs to figure out the "cool factor" of apparel targeted toward a more inner-city and urban demographic? How would a largely caucasian creative team understand the differences between Latinos or Asian-Americans (Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, et al.)? How does this affect casting decisions? Not understanding demographics also relates to age. How would a creative team with an average age of 40 understand the 18-25 yr old demographic?

Read more of How Google and Social Entrepreneurs Perpetuate the Digital Divide Among Nonprofits below.

By Andrew Sears,
Executive Director-TechMission

In the past 10 years, I have been working to address the digital divide, which is the gap between those who have access to and training with technology. I serve as the Executive Director of TechMission, which runs the largest association of Black and Latino led nonprofits addressing the digital divide and manages UrbanMinistry.org, which is one of the most visited web portals of Black and Latino nonprofit leaders. During that time, I have seen many effective initiatives in addressing the digital divide. At the same time, I’ve seen many efforts that have been very well-intentioned, but in the end may have only made matters worse.

I grew up in the inner-city, but later went to MIT and co-founded the Internet Telecoms Consortium with on of the fathers of the Internet (David Clark) to study the social and business implications of the Internet. The most important thing I learned while studying complex systems at MIT is that often you make a change to the system and the result is exactly the opposite of what you were expecting.

Case in point: my wife and I went to Woodstock ’99—a complex system of people, alcohol, drugs, bands and unusually hot weather. At the concert, there was a nonprofit group wanting to promote peace, and it gave out thousands of “peace candles.” The result was the opposite of what they had intended because they had not thought through the consequences of giving candles to thousands of people who were inebriated and enraged from the extreme heat and exploitive prices at the concert. The result was that people used the candles to start hundreds of fires and burn everything in sight. A group wanting to promote peace at Woodstock unintentionally became a catalyst for riots, and in the worst circumstances, this is how complex systems work.

Addressing the digital divide and trying to help under-resourced communities is an extremely complex system. My assessment is that some of the largest efforts to address the digital divide by social entrepreneurs, including those at Google, may have unintentionally made matters worse among nonprofits.

Is Google Grants Hurting Black and Latino-Led Nonprofits?

In the past few years, Google has “given away” $300 million worth of free advertising to nonprofit organizations through Google Grants. Following Google’s value of employee input, Google leaves most of the grantmaking decisions to regular employees. In the United States, Google’s employees are disproportionately White and Asian and from elite schools. These employees then give grants to organizations with interest like theirs and people they know, which most often are also White or Asian and from elite schools.

This creates a bias in the process, but that is common in the nonprofit world. In fact, according to a report from the Greenlining Institute, foundations only give 3.6% of their funds to organizations led by people of color although people of color make up 52.4% of poverty in the USA. This bias is shown graphically in the adjacent diagram.

If that bias were the only effect Google Grants were having, then they would be no different than most foundations. The problem is how Google Grants works, by giving away “virtual money” that people can then bid on ads, they have essentially flooded the market for nonprofit ads with $300 million in virtual money.

Read more here.

The truth about bottled water

Bottled water is safer and more pure than tap water. True or False? According to Tappening and Start a Lie, it's false. Some facts from Tappening are below.

Bottled water often contains more bacteria and impurities than tap water, because the EPA regulates municipal water systems more stringently than the FDA regulates bottled water

Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, and in the United States, less than 20% of these bottles are recycled.

Via Adverblog.

The World’s Largest iPod

Jonathan Ive, the man behind the design of Apple iPhone and iPod, recently created a giant iPod model that he sent as a gift to British fashion designer Sir Paul Smith on his birthday.

Via Digital Inspiration.

Nike remake feat.

Ice Cube's 1993 hip-hop classic “It was a Good Day” was recently remade in to a Nike commercial featuring Paul Rodriguez (P.Rod). Because it's shot in LA, stay tuned for celebrity cameos.

View extended version at Kineda and the 0:60 second version at Adland.

Agency: W+K
Creative Director: Ean Lensch
Producer: Craig Smith
Nike Skate Group Creative: Jon Humphries
Production Company: Harvest
Director: The Hoffman Brothers
Executive Producer: Bonnie Goldfarb,
Scott Howard
Head Of Production: Rob Sexton
Director of Photography: Max Goldman
Editor: Mark Hoffman
Sound Design: Ravenswork
VFX Company: The Syndicate
Music Artist: Ice Cube
Song: It Was a Good Day