The downside of rampant social networking

There's something apt (if a bit icky) about harnessing the power of social media to fight a social disease. In the case of a new campaign from the American Social Health Association, the disease is chlamydia. The medium of choice is—what else?—Facebook. The campaign, from agency Duval Guillaume, is tagged “Spread it to beat it” (there’s a hard-working theme line), and is designed to communicate the dangers of the infection to young people. The driver is an app called MorphMonkey, which lets users create a “love child” by combining pictures of their faces with those of friends. Doing so, however, “spreads” the infection from person to person (in a virtual and educational context, naturally). For now, the “outbreak” is confined to Facebook, so MySpace and Bebo users will just have to lump it—metaphorically, of course.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

May 1, 2008 in Gianatasio | Permalink