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Lenticular Photo Used To Secretly Convey Hot Line Number To Abused Kids
- braum 14y agonot much of a secret anymore...
- sukuriant 14y agoTrue; but, if they can do it with this image, they can do it with hundreds of other images. It makes me very happy to see an old tech used in a potentially very, very helpful light; and not just a gimmick for movie box art
- gwern 14y ago99.99% of the adult population will never ever hear about this. I think the secret is safe.
- coldtea 14y agoFor the HN and tech blogs crowd no. For 99.999% of the population who will never hear about this, or will forget it in a split second, yes. It's amazing how many people have been busted doing stuff that is general knowledge for decades, but still didn't occur to them that it can betray them.
- throwaway1980 14y agoThe supposed reason for this is that the abuser won't be able to tell what the kid is looking at. If it's unsafe for a kid to look at such an ad with the abuser around, how is the kid supposed to know that the abuser can't see what he's reading and possibly copying down?
- dmazin 14y agoThe goal is for the abuser to not know the child saw the information; it's irrelevant whether the child knows whether the abuser saw or not.
- stormbrew 14y agoWould the kid benefit any more by the ad not being there or by not using this technique to make it only visible to the kid? Any kid scared enough to scrub having seen it from their own mind would not be well served by any version of this. The hope would be that some kids will see the number, remember it, and then call it later.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoBut then, why limit it to kids who are 4'4"? Aren’t shorter and taller kids being abused? If it’s a numbers game, shouldn’t you want to cast the net as wide as possible?
- sukuriant 14y agoShorter kids will probably be able to see it (it's an angles thing; so, shorter kids will probably see it from further away I'm guessing). I'm theorizing here; but, abuse probably doesn't start with the child is 14 or 15. It probably starts when they're 7 or 8; and they'll see the ad. By the time they're 14 or 15 and not able to see the advertisement anymore, they'll hopefully have seen it so much that, when they finally have the courage to call the number and flee, since they haven't already in your prescribed scenario (which is VERY possible), they'll remember it from their youth. I believe the thinking for this kind of tool is that it's better that the parent doesn't know that the kid knows this number than it is that all children know the number.
- mikeash 14y ago"It probably starts when they're 7 or 8" Pretty sure it's much earlier than that. It's not like a parent wakes up one day and says, "Well, little Johnny is seven years old today, finally old enough for me to start beating him with a rake like I've always wanted to do." This stuff starts very early. One serious problem with this stuff is that, since the child is subjected to it from pretty much the beginning, they grow up thinking it's normal. This makes it less likely for them to seek help (help for what? it's normal!) and helps perpetuate the cycle, as they're more likely to do the same thing to their own children.
- dagw 14y agoThe supposed reason is to do something neat that creates press and gets people to talk about child abuse. This has been all over the news and nobody who sees the ad is going to be ignorant of who it works. Genuine subterfuge was never the intention.
- chiaro 14y agoI believe it's more to do with establishing a secret or 'exclusive' mode of contact between the hotline and the child. I imagine a large (possibly the biggest hurdle) about getting kids to phone when they need to is to make them feel safe from their abuser finding out. Establishing that safety off the bat is important - the communication is in confidence.
- lenazegher 14y agoI guess this is kind of interesting, but it also seems a lot like fluff.
- loupeabody 14y agoI'm curious to know if this ad actually resulted in more child abusers being reported.
- sukuriant 14y agoOr /will/ result. Getting the kids to a phone will probably be the hard part. I hope they figure out a way to handle that.
- sgdesign 14y agoMy first impression is that this is a particularly stupid idea. It will probably result in lot of kids not seeing the number because they're a little too short or a little too tall for their age.
- afterburner 14y agoBut some will. Interesting idea, I guess it's so the abusing adult doesn't hastily pull the kid away from memorizing the number?
- sgrove 14y agoIt seems to be a novel approach, certainly worth the experimentation. Calling it stupid is going far overboard without intimate knowledge of their expectations and motivations.
- muyuu 14y agoBetter than nothing at all.
- markdown 14y agoThen put another one on the opposite wall showing the number to everyone. Problem solved.
- pseudonym 14y agoFor one, there is no "too short" for this particular type of display. It's an under-over type of thing. For two, they're explicitly taking the 'average height of a 10 year old' for this. You would write off the entire ad as pointless because, as implied by the very definition of "average", 50% of 10 year olds and a smaller percentage of each age below 10 would be unable to see it? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater...
- mcintyre1994 14y agoThat criticism sounds valid to me. That's a lot of children, and it's not like 10 is some sort of cut off point for anything.
- downandout 14y agoIt has interesting mainstream applications for in-store advertising. You can tout the benefits of a product meant for children to an adult and appeal to the child at the same time.
- danielharan 14y agoIf word ever gets out, that's a potential PR nightmare for those making the ad.
- batgaijin 14y agoRemember, whining in the car works best
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- brandan 14y agoBad news for tall kids.
- Spectral 14y agoThis isn't "bad news" for tall kids. Essentially nothing has changed for them overall, they wouldn't see this message anyways. This is just possibly good news for the demographic of medium/short kids who may have the chance of seeing this, which is the whole purpose of this campaign.
- konstruktor 14y agoA user recently pointed out that the most important advertising festival is coming up (http://www.canneslions.com/ http://www.canneslions.com/) and that agencies are doing campaigns just to enter the race for awards, which seems to be relevant here. See also http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57581882-71/microsoft-turns-forbes-magazines-into-wi-fi-hot-spots/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57581882-71/microsoft-turn...
- stbullard 14y agoThe impracticality of this ad doesn't mean it's just Lion bait. Some ads are made solely to win awards, and are utterly impractical, but the converse doesn't hold: not all impractical ads are made solely for awards shows. In this case, the impractical presentation is driving a conversation, which is itself increasing awareness of the issue and the phone number, 116-111. That's a good ad at work: not necessarily at the obvious level - people seeing it on a Spanish street - but nonetheless creating outsize value for the client.
- sukuriant 14y agoMaybe I'm too serious about this; but a couple of the kinds of responses in this thread really irk me. 1) "not good enough". Yeah, but it's better than nothing; and if it can protect one kid from an abusive situation, or one set of kids from their abusive situations, then that is wonderful. 2) "lol, sucks to be [insert random demographic]". Yes, because child abuse is funny </sarcasm>. No, it really isn't. It's not funny at all. The person that's supposed to be watching after you is your greatest danger. It's like cyber-bullying and regular-bullying except with your parent. It's even harder to escape that.
- hashmymustache 14y agoI can understand that concern, but I think people might be reacting out of recognition that this is more an advertising stunt than an informed strategy at addressing child abuse. Either way these tactics speak to a failing system in not approaching students where they are away from their abuser - school. While the ad has great intent, it simplifies the issue a bit by implying that kids aren't calling in abuse because they can't find the number.
- jonahx 14y ago>> While the ad has great intent, it simplifies the issue a bit by implying that kids aren't calling in abuse because they can't find the number. This a thousand times. It feels like something the scientist on the Simpsons invented -- very clever but utterly missing the point. I would be shocked if even a single child uses the poster as they're imagining it will be used.
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoMaybe we should take all kids away from their parents and let the state raise them. After all, that will certainly protect one kid from an abusive situation, so it is wonderful. <sarcasm, obviously /> I don't have a strong opinion on the advertisement, but I do have a strong opinion about the "do anything to protect one X" where X is used more for special interests than out of actual concern for X. Things should be thought of in terms of cost-benefit. Otherwise, you wind up with crap like the TSA, where far more people are dying from driving due to not flying because of horrible TSA policies than the TSA is saving from terrorist attacks. So, on the advertisement, it is a good thing to cause emotional distress to all the kids who aren't being abused and who have no idea that kind of thing exists? (And, fwiw, I take this topic very seriously. I have four kids myself and was abused growing up. It is not just an academic, somebody-else's-kids topic to me.) EDIT: Oh, and I completely agree with your second point. Child abuse is an amazingly serious topic. There are few things worse than the person whom you are supposed to trust most and who is supposed to care most for you violating that trust.
- Yver 14y agoIt's a very interesting idea, but in the end it's a moderately-sized number that's light gray over a dark gray background... It seems hard enough to read that the kid would have to stare at the ad.
- mikeash 14y agoThe whole point is that it's OK for the kid to stare at the ad, because from the vantage of a normal-sized adult, it doesn't look like it's anything related to child abuse.
- gburt 14y agoExcept it's just the phone number and quote that are hidden from adults. There's a message at the top about child abuse and a picture of an abused kid that everyone sees.
- mikeash 14y agoMessage, yes, but it's just a picture of a somewhat sad-looking child in the upper view.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoI think the child looks normal with no injuries to the adults. The bruises only show up to the children.
- meraku 14y agoThe sad thing about this is that we're probably going to start seeing this form of advertising being used to specifically target kids with marketing messages, where the parent (or adult) looking at the same sign will be oblivious to what is happening.
- darkarmani 14y agoJoe Camel is really going to start advertising cigarettes to kids now. The "high" ad is a no smoking ad and the "low" add is joe camel getting kids to try smoking.
- onan_barbarian 14y agoNo, thank you. I know abused kids are a serious issue, but the vast majority of kids aren't abused, and this is a disturbing ad to show specifically to a kid, especially when the grown-up with them doesn't see it. I'm picturing walking past this billboard with my kid and having him ask "Daddy, why does that kid look all beat up" and answering "no, that kid looks perfectly normal, you're making it up". Nice. There are far better ways to have a very high-quality 2-way covert channel to any kid old enough to read an ad and act on the information here, namely: school. Many teachers are extremely pro-active about figuring out signs of abuse. My mother was a teacher and intervened decisively and successfully in a serious ongoing physical abuse situation once. Plus, the idea that you might care about kids at school and find out what's up with them is a good precedent that can lead to a lot of other nice related things even when there isn't abuse. On the other hand, lenticular ads that show different things to adults and kids is not a good precedent, whether it's used to show grosser ads to grownups than we currently have to see already ("hey, the kids can't see this") or to covertly market to kids.
- nness 14y agoReally, what is wrong with providing more than one way to reach out to abused children?
- kevinpet 14y agoAs the parent points out, what's potentially wrong with this method is the absence of cost benefit-analysis based on what value this will provide vs. any negative effects this will have (in addition to the actual cost). Your argument is an instance of "we should do something; this is something; therefor we should do it."
- yen223 14y agoOn the other hand, the parent's argument is the classic "Some random edge case might happen, therefore it's not worth doing X" argument. You're right, the absence of an actual cost-benefit analysis makes this debate somewhat pointless.
- 14y ago
- GigabyteCoin 14y agoWhat an incredibly great use of technology.
- sahaskatta 14y agoSeems like a great idea for movie posters too. Children see an advertisement for a 'G' movie while adults see an advertisement for a 'R' movie.
- mhb 14y agoWouldn't the 911 dispatcher be able to direct the kid to the appropriate service?
- toast0 14y agoNot in Spain, you'd need the 112 dispatcher to direct the kid. I thought about this as well, but I think the intent is to reach out to children who are being frequently abused and may not realize that abuse isn't normal; and maybe also reach out to children who know something is wrong but don't know who to call. I'm not sure if this ad is the most effective outreach available with this organization's budget, which I think is the real issue. (Although, doing PR on the ad seems to have been effective outreach)
- lessnonymous 14y agoAdult sees an advertisement for McDonald's Healthy Salad. Kid points to it and wants to go to McDonalds. Parent likes that kid responded to ad for salad. But the kid was really responding to an ad for deep fried processed chicken and potato.
- mark-r 14y agoNice fantasy, but not practical. You'll notice that the two images shown in the sign are nearly identical. You don't want a shadow of the one image to be seen in the other or it gives the entire illusion away.
- vacri 14y agoNever going to happen, because the PR fallout would be terrible. Lenticular presentation doesn't make you immune from seeing the image if you're above a certain age. Adults will still see it if they're short, if they're sitting down, if the billboard company put it a bit too high or in a bad place, if you're crouching down to tie your kid's shoe, because you've been told it's there by an article or someone involved in installing it... the list goes on. This is the kind of thing people will overlook for a noble cause, but would have bad fallout for commercial gain.
- bnegreve 14y ago> Never going to happen, I wouldn't be so sure. Advertisement industry uses a lot of tricks that are not really different from this one. Some people don't like them but most people don't notice or don't care. Another example is Facebook that keeps adding features that reduce people's privacy, you see a lot of complains on the web, yet they don't change anything because 99% are fine with it. So it's definitely not because a trick can be detected, that it isn't worth using it.
- freehunter 14y agoBut in Facebook's example, the 1% who were not fine with it made enough noise to have Facebook regulated by the federal government. They are now mandated to honor your privacy settings, no matter what. So that example falls a bit short in that if it's egregious enough of a trick, regulators will take notice.
- DigitalSea 14y agoChild abuse is a serious issue and I applaud any campaign that aims to help bring it to the spotlight. I have a couple of serious questions about the campaign though: 1) What if a child is abnormally tall? They wouldn't get to see the advertisement. And trust me. I have a cousin who was taller than most average adults when he was 11 years old (might not be the average, but certainly tall enough the number wouldn't be seen by him). 2) The campaign aims to hide the number from adults, but what if the adult was abnormally short, they would see the campaign. Would this be a big deal? Probably not, but it does show a flaw or two in the ideas behind the campaign. 3) Is this enough? The intentions are noble and clear, but is a poster with magic number enough to help? Most people will see a poster with a beaten up kid, but no number, so it kind of loses effect. If the number was always visible it might be of more help and doubtful it would be any child in danger. The money spent on this campaign will far outweigh any benefit it provides and it somewhat saddens me. The number #1 thing kids who are abused have mostly in common is that they go to school. Teachers are exceptionally good at spotting signs of abuse and reporting it, it's highly encouraged especially here in Australian educational communities. Posters with the number clearly displayed being plastered around school grounds and playgrounds would probably be more beneficial and helpful in my opinion as parents or perpetrators are most likely not following the kids they're abusing around the school between classes.
- nl 14y agoTo (1) & (2): Perfect is the enemy of good. To (3): No, only short people see the bruises. Read the article.
- joshmlewis 14y agoAd content aside, this type of advertising is a step further of how grocery stores place certain items at eye level with kids vs eye level with adults, aka cereal. Very interesting progression.
- nate00 14y agoI'm not sure what to make of the sentence at the top of the ad. Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it. It seems like the sentence is supposed to be a clever wink, which makes me wonder whether the lenticular photo effect is meant for secret communication or for a discussion-provoking gimmick.
- bostonpete 14y agoIt told me that the sign was more intended to promote awareness of child abuse issues than to really serve as a secret/hidden message to abused children.
- minopret 14y agoThis campaign is a bit "meta". It succeeded to get our attention, or rather, the attention of people like us in Spain. As far as I can tell the lenticular posters are only a design concept. Here in brackets are my guesses at emendations of the Google Translate version of what the ad agency wrote on YouTube: "We appreciate your comments. ANAR Foundation has few resources to give out [its] telephone [number for] complaint [about] abusers. Thanks [to] the publicity [the] campaign is having on media and [to] all [the] comments on social networking [it, ANAR Foundation] has achieved the main goal of the campaign: Raise awareness of the Foundation and the phone [number] 116 111 to assist children and adolescents at risk. We encourage you to continue to help raise awareness of the ANAR Foundation. Thank you very much." -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0h1mgpn95s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0h1mgpn95s
- nichodges 14y agoThe headline of this ad is the giveaway to it being little more than an ad agency and their client wanting to 'be famous' (in the world of advertising), with a video about their idea that will reach 1000x as many people as the purported audience of the actual ad. The use of charity clients by agencies to win awards is not unusual. Sometimes the ideas that win awards are truly effective and wonderful (The Tap Project[1], Million NYC[2]), but more often these are 'scam ads' that are never even seen by the intended audience. The traditional advertising industry is attempting to cope with obsolescence in a way that sees it increasingly loosing touch with reality. A tweet for Oreos recently won a major advertising award, and 14 people were credited[3]. How a lenticular that nobody will ever see in real life makes the top of HN is a bit of a mystery to me. [1] http://www.unicefusa.org/campaigns/tap-project/ http://www.unicefusa.org/campaigns/tap-project/ [2] http://www.millionnyc.com/ http://www.millionnyc.com/ [3] http://t.co/lxI7W1ty9A http://t.co/lxI7W1ty9A
- fyi80 14y agoOh my. In my day they just gave us coupons for free personal pan pizza for each 10 books we read.
- NatW 14y agoit seems this is a technique for targeted marketing in the abstract. One sign might target two age group market segments, simultaneously, a kind of 'message discrimination'. I find it a bit concerning precisely because the age groups may be unaware of the segregated presentation. In this case it's theoretically a public service announcement, but it could alternatively be e.g: a business marketing toys / candy, 'under the radar' of parents.. The message of a political or religious group, or any number of possibilities.
- jleader 14y agoThe whole thing strikes me as the ad agency trying to do something clever that will impress other ad industry folks, and not really trying to address any real issues. Basically, "here's some clever technology, how can we pretend it solves a problem?" Seriously, abusers will let their kids look at an ad about child abuse, as long as it doesn't have a phone number on it, and the kid in the ad isn't injured? Is the problem with getting child abuse reported really that the kids don't know the hotline number? "If only those poor abused kids knew the hotline number, they'd all call it." Also, the lenticular lens restricts the image to a particular viewing angle, not a particular height, so kids standing farther away will see the adults-only image, and adults standing very close will probably be able to see at least the upper portion of the kids-only image.
- eridius 14y agoDid you read the whole article? The upper portion of the "kids-only image" is identical to the upper portion of the adult image. Only part of the lower half is any different.
- brown9-2 14y agoThe article states that the agency was concerned with how to reach children looking at an ad without letting the adult they are with know they are looking at an ad about child abuse. However, the version of the ad that adults see is still about child abuse.
- bmmayer1 14y agoShouldn't this be the opposite? The kid sees a regular ad. The adult sees a disturbing picture that says "PLEASE DON'T BEAT UP YOUR KID."
- brazzy 14y agoNo, because the point is to get abused kids to dial that number, and before that to understand what the message is about.
- blackjack160 14y agoClever idea but I think the ad space is better utilized delivering the message as legibly as possible within that space. "Abused? Call NNN-NNN." This would increase effective range, making it harder for the abuser to evade. You can argue that it makes it easier to evade, but in a busy subway, or other closed environs, legibility is hard to suppress. They can also mix and match font and background colors to make it harder for the abuser to detect Banner patterns for avoidance. It would also be smart if the campaign could pseudo-randomize display spots, again making it harder to consciously evade the message. If we had to go with the lenticular approach, they could also experiment with sound frequencies that kids are sensitive to, but adults would struggle with. That could be a cool hailing beacon to couple with the display.
- lucb1e 14y agoAm I the only one who thinks it's a good thing that people are at least trying to do the right thing for abused children? Trying to come up with something new that might help?
- DanBC 14y agoI thought it was fairly obvious that this ad-campaign is less about the actual gimmick being useful or not, and more about creating discussion. The ad is probably not going to directly get the number into the hands of children, and there are much better ways to get the number to children (leaflets in loos at schools; leaflets in phonebooths at schools; etc) and so the numbers of children directly helped by this are probably going to be low. But it does raise some interesting discussion.
- brown9-2 14y agoOf course that is good, but if the agency's principal motivation is something self-centered (getting attention), then they are using this issue as a vehicle for their own profit.
- LekkoscPiwa 14y agoAnd this works as long as you don't advertise the whole world how you did it! Idiots!
- blots 14y agoI doubt that parents abusing their kids or the kids being abused are even aware that some people would think of the relationship as abusive. What if it's just verbal bullying? And I suppose it's mostly psychological abuse. Maybe when the child grows up it will realize that the parent was wrong, but not at 10 years or younger.