American Red Cross Promote Online Course With “Misadventures in Babysitting” Clip

American Red Cross - Babysitting

The American Red Cross’ Babysitting Basics online course costs just $25 and takes around 4 hours to complete, and it’s designed to help young people to become more responsible babysitters. The teens featured in this clip obviously never came anywhere near the course the course, and their logic is enough to give worried parents something to “really” worry about.

From nail gun etiquette, to fire safety, to how to be a food scientist (imagine that, peanut butter does come from from peanuts), the clip covers just a few of parent’s worst nightmares when dealing with inexperienced babysitters.

The ad was created by BBDO Atlanta, directed by Erich Joiner for Tool of North America.

[via AdRants]

USA

American Red Cross Teams Up With The Walking Dead for Brai… I mean, Blood Drive

The Walking Dead & American Red Cross - Use Your Brains. Give Blood.

The Walking Dead is back for Season 3 on October 14, just in time to inspire more nightmares and plenty of Halloween costume ideas. The show is also part of inspired partnership with the American Red Cross, to encourage blood donation with the ‘Use Your Brains. Give Blood’ campaign.

From September 24 to October 22, all blood donors at participating American Red Cross centers or blood drives are eligible to enter to win a trip to the set for a behind-the-scenes look at the show.

To further help promote the campaign, the show’s co-executive producer and special effects makeup designer Greg Nicotero created digital zombifications to several celebrities including Peter Jackson, Jimmy Smits and The Black Keys.

(excuse the ad in the embed below, I will repost a YouTube version when it becomes available)

USA

Misdirected Red Cross Tweet Turns into Social Media Lesson

Red Cross Twitter ResponsesThis weekend at Podcamp Toronto, I had several conversations about being authentic and using your natural voice to engage with your friends or customers on social media platforms. I know that’s not exactly earth-shattering news or a new conversation, but a few people had not been following the example that I cited from the American Red Cross. Here’s a brief summary of the events.

On February 15, at 11:24pm, Gloria Huang, Social Media specialist for the American Red Cross thought she was tweeting to her personal Twitter account. Instead the message “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd.” was tweeted out to all the Red Cross’ 200,000 plus Twitter followers. Anyone who uses a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite (like Gloria was) to manage their personal and corporate social media accounts knows how easily this could happen simply by selecting the wrong account icon.

Within an hour the offending tweet had been deleted and Wendy Harman, Social Media Director for the Red Cross provided a this response on Twitter.

“We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.”

Harmon expanded her response on the Red Cross Blog

“In the meantime we found so many of you to be sympathetic and understanding.  While we’re a 130 year old humanitarian organization, we’re also made of up human beings. Thanks for not only getting that but for turning our faux pas into something good.”

“You immediately embraced this mix-up and many of you have pledged donations to the Red Cross”

While there may have been a few nasty replies to the error, the majority of responses were positive and supporting of Huang and the organization. Yes, she kept her job. By being open, human and consistently providing value through their social media outlets, the American Red Cross had built up considerable social capital with their followers.

That support quickly carried over to real life blood donations and support from both Hootsuite and Dogfish Beer and their fans.