This is a short tale of how one good thing can hopefully lead to another. And another, and another again.

It starts with Neil Perkin at Only Dead Fish who today announced that he’s heading to Tanzania in Africa for the first time in November with the The Great Football Giveaway – a charity that aims to get sports equipment direct into the hands (or feet) of some of the world’s most disadvantaged kids.

In a nutshell, Neil is getting a team or two together to give footballs to kids who don’t have very much at all. Just watch the film, and you’ll see the power it can have on these kids – it’s amazing, inspirational stuff.

We wrote a post earlier this year on how the World Cup wasn’t doing much for the continent that hosted it. I was born in Africa, and lived there as a kid, and was really frustrated that marketeers amongst others weren’t seeing the bigger picture. So this got us really excited – here’s a way to do something about it. Right now.

We want to do our bit to help Neil on his mission. And to hopefully give someone else a chance to go and experience the joy, energy and optimism that sits alongside the poverty, illness, war, famine and depressing lack of opportunities. In short to experience something completely different.

We need to iron out details with Neil but the idea is to get a conversation going that finds someone who’s never been to Africa and then backs them to get out there in November as part of the team.

Maybe someone who’s recently graduated and can’t get work or someone who’s out of work right now but would be really excited and motivated to be on the team.

We’ll chuck £500 in to get them flights. We don’t want anything in return other than for them to create some kind of record about their trip – to capture a sense of what these kids lives consist of, the highs and the lows and bring to life the impact of the charity.

So, there’s the next step in the chain. A big part of the Pipeline Project is about backing people to do new things that have a positive social impact. So watch this space for more news and details on how it’s going to work. And if you want to get involved either to head out there, or as part of the team backing them up at this end, just let us know.

Jambo bwana

Conversation at Pipeline has naturally turned towards football as the World Cup kicks off in South Africa this weekend. We’ve seen the adverts, read the predictions and planned our important meetings carefully over the next month.

We’ll be backing England of course. After so many years of underachievement, we’re really hoping that Fabio Capello has instilled a greater sense of purpose and built the camaraderie needed to turn a bunch of highly talented individuals into a world-beating team. Like the rest of the nation, we’ll be keeping everything crossed on that front!

No tournament like this is really complete without a surprise or two. We’d also love to see a challenger footballing nation punch above their weight and put a mark on the map with a bit of giant-killing. Maybe even an African nation given the importance of this tournament in putting the forgotten continent back on the map in the world’s eyes.

This is of course the very first World Cup in Africa. Having been born in Nairobi and lived in various places across Africa as a kid, the World Cup coming to town should be a huge catalyst for the continent. As an event, its rare in its ability to galvanise the world for a month, capture the imagination and provide hope and possibility to the billions of people watching it. Not least of which the huge population across Africa whose lives are so very different from our own.

And that’s what got us thinking….this event really could be a real force for positive change but has there been enough real innovation around the advertising money being spent? Are the organisers and advertisers are missing a trick?

It’s been estimated that $1.5 billion (yes, that’s right….BILLION) has been spent on advertising for this event. Elsewhere it’s estimated that $1.6 billion has also gone against sponsorship.

Whatever the actual numbers are, we’re talking about an enormous amount of money. Think of all the human energy that’s gone into getting everything just perfect for these 4 weeks. Think about the real impact of all that effort. Some of the ads might float your boat, others not. But they pretty soon become wallpaper, competing with each other for attention and frankly when everyone is shouting, are any of them being heard? How much is going to waste?

Indeed, the early evidence suggests that such massive investment is not having the intended effect. A massive 88% of people interviewed said that their opinion of the sponsors hadn’t changed as as a result of their link to the tournament and 84% of people said that they were no more likely to buy a brand as a result of its sponsorship of the tournament…

Based on that, you can’t help but wonder if at least some of the money and effort might have been pooled to do something a bit better – something tangible for the host continent possibly?

Pepsi have set a precedent for this earlier in the year pulling out of the Super Bowl and launching their innovative Refresh Everything campaign

Taking that idea further, what if the top 10 advertisers had teamed together to fund a project that could really make a difference around the World Cup? If 10% of all the spending had been pooled to create a project worth $150 million? How much benefit could that have had to both the contributors, and the continent?

It would be a big bold move requiring strong collaboration and leadership. When you think of the pressing needs of the African people in areas like basic sanitation, health, medicine, education and housing, it makes the idea of needing to sell more beer, crisps and sneakers seem a little insignificant. But in Africa, $150 million could go a very long way…..

So, here’s the open challenge to the marketing community……how could you find new ways to engage the world during these kinds of events? Ideas like these that can meet not only your own commercial agenda, but creatively address the bigger social agenda?

Now that really would be something worth talking about

Photo: courtesy of Picture Taker 2, Flickr