[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 8.5min]
An interesting new video to say the least. However, while the production is great and humorous, there are some important points to be made.
This is a campaign video, meant to dramatically simplify a complex subject, make it easy to understand, and influence people toward some type of action or line of thinking. That said, it is biased, and doesn’t meet the needs of fair and balanced reporting as would a journalistic segment. It goes beyond the max 10-30 seconds that television campaigns would run, and probably costs less to produce and distribute.
What Annie and the animators do well is employ both humor and scare tactics through colloquial narration and imagery. It is amusing! And it can also be quite influential.
As with every such campaign with a protagonist, there is a corresponding set of antagonists. This gentleman went to the work of dissecting Annie’s video with a detailed critique highlighting the campaign’s bias and simplification of facts. Briefly watch the rebuttal video here. Unfortunately, although this detractor expounding on the importance of objectivity, he gets personal and overly critical, thus missing the point of an effective rebuttal 
What does all this say for communications? While producing media for marketing purposes is becoming increasingly common, there is a responsibility toward being objective and providing facts. While some people may be easily swayed through vivid imagery, reminders of personal values, and scare tactics, there are others who will watch closely and will proudly cry foul. Maybe there’s a strong counterargument in the works then. The good thing is that this all fosters further dialogue. However, certain subjects like this that are complex like climate change, people will only have so much mental space or time for. For this reason, objectivity is really damn important. Make any potential “holes” tight and open to interpretation.
Whether a campaign or promotional media piece is for ethically good or bad causes, left or right, good communicators will step outside themselves and create media that is credible and doesn’t overly rely on emotional appeal. Think in terms of the enemy or antagonists. Sometimes using manufactured doubt can be extremely helpful, akin to using an enemy’s weight to your advantage like in Judo. Just be ethical about it, and don’t lose sight of the message to drill home.
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