An Adoption Can Turn A Life Around

If you're anything like me, you really respect all the people out there that open their homes and their hearts to adoptive children. Such is the mission of Adoption Resources of Wisconsin, a nonprofit organization that "operates from the belief that all children, regardless of their needs, have the right to a permanent family."

In order to help spread the word that adoption can help "turn a life around," Serve Marketing is turning billboards on their heads throughout the state of Wisconsin.

This outdoor campaign is being revealed over time ... with phase one showing upside-down images of an adult and child. On May 2, those images will be flipped right side up and will be joined by copy which appropriately reads, "Turn a life around." Drivers will be directed to fosterparentsrock.org to learn more about how they can become an adoptive parent or a foster parent.

According to Gary Mueller, from Serve Marketing:

"Nothing is right when you live in that world, 

so we've taken the upside-down world of kids

and applied it to every part of the campaign 

to create an emotional connection and 

inspire more adults to become foster parents." 

As an adjunct to this campaign, Serve and Adoption Resources of Wisconsin encourages you to filip your own profile picture upside down on Facebook.

So, go ahead, flip out! And change a child's life forever.

Never Ever Shake a Baby

Serve Marketing, a Milwaukee-based advertising agency, exclusively focuses on creating breakthrough advertising that helps nonprofits get their message heard.

The creative director, Gary Mueller, tells a story about a visit from his boss a few years ago. She asked him to create an ad that could be heard only one time and never forgotten. Easy, right?

Well, it turns out she had a darn good reason for asking Gary to do this nearly impossible task. You see, the number of children treated at the local Children's Hospital for shaken baby syndrome had jumped from 17 in 2007 to 30 in 2008. That was 30 children that had either been killed or permanently disabled as a direct result of being shaken.

So Gary set out to create that absolutely unforgettable ad.

Rather than only focusing on the creative - which some creatives do - Serve Marketing paid attention to both the ad and the medium in which it was delivered. Gary created a radio ad that was clearly unforgettable but that he knew people would have difficulty listening to. So, he went to every radio station in town and convinced them all to run this radio spot at precisely 7:40 am on a Friday. During rush hour that morning, every single person who had the radio on heard the Shaken Baby Association's PSA. And if they didn't like the baby crying and switched the station, guess what they heard? The same baby crying.

In the seven months prior to airing the ad, 26 cases of shaken baby syndrome were reported by area hospitals. In the four and a half months that followed, only ONE shaken baby incident was reported.

Remarkable results.
Remarkable agency.
Remarkable cause.

See more at Serve Marketing's website.