The Red Band Project

Last night we screened a special “eco-aware” film, DisneyNature’s Oceans, set to be released today on Earth Day. As part of the promotion of the film a Social Action campaign was created titled the “Save My Oceans Tour.”

At last night’s screening, the culmination of the Save My Oceans Tour campaign for the Hawaii screening involved a number of non-profit and community organizations, with a focus on ocean awareness, presenting information on their organizations as well as letting movie-goers know what they can do to help save our oceans. The most notable aspect of this campaign was that in order to get tickets, each movie-goer had to pledge to reduce their use of single use plastics by using reusable water bottles and shopping bags.

As we sat there I marveled at the amount of careful thought, planning, and coordination put into this campaign. What can I say, I’m an event guy. Stuff like organization, mobilization, and logistics intrigue me. After talking with the guy that was in charge of coordinating efforts locally, I discovered that Participant Media was the organization that was behind the Save My Oceans Tour campaign.

Being a little more intrigued I did a little digging on Participant Media and found some interesting stuff. First and foremost is that they create a number of different Social Action campaigns related to films they produce, DisneyNature’s Oceans being one of them. These campaigns bring to light the real issues behind the film.

The mission of Participant Media from their website:

Participant believes that a good story well told can truly make a difference in how one sees the world. Whether it is a feature film, documentary or other form of media, Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that also create awareness of the real issues that shape our lives.

The company seeks to entertain audiences first, then to invite them to participate in making a difference. To facilitate this, Participant creates specific social action campaigns for each film and documentary designed to give a voice to issues that resonate in the films.

How cool is that? They had the great idea to say, “hey, we want to make good movies, but we also want to do good by encouraging people to make a difference.” I don’t know about you but I find that to be way cool. You actually might recognize a number of other movies they’ve been involved with and have done Social Action campaigns for:

• Syrianna
• Good Night, And Good Luck
• An Inconvienient Truth
• The Kite Runner
• The Visitor
• The Soloist
• Food, Inc
• and last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature – The Cove

For each of these films there was a Social Action campaign that made viewers aware of the real life issues surrounding the films.

I encourage you to check out their website for more information on the company, the films they are involved with, as well as press materials, and their Social Action efforts.

Happy Earth Day everyone.