Most childhood-hunger PSAs reach for the same images — empty plates, downcast eyes, a somber voiceover. Standard Practice went the other way: a full American summer, kids sprinting through sprinklers, and a Bob Dylan track underneath.
The Boulder indie is the creative engine behind “Nourish the American Dream,” a nationwide campaign from Albertsons Companies Foundation’s Nourishing Neighbors initiative that unites more than 250 nonprofits — Feeding America, No Kid Hungry and Hunger Free America among them — around a $5 million goal to help end childhood hunger.
Show the dream, not the deficit
The strategy started with an inversion. Instead of dramatizing what hunger takes, the work imagines what a child does when it’s gone.
“We asked ourselves what life could look like if hunger were no longer a barrier,” said Dave Schiff, Partner, Strategy at Standard Practice. “What does a child do when they’re not thinking about where their next meal is coming from? That’s the creative territory we wanted to explore — the full, unbridled life of a kid living in a hunger-free America.”
A donated Dylan deep cut
The national PSA, “Feed This,” was directed by Esteban of CANADA LA and set in a summertime neighborhood — a pointed choice, since summer is when millions of kids lose the school meals they count on. The film runs on “Wigwam,” a whimsical 1970 Bob Dylan track the artist donated to the cause.
Print, radio, digital and out-of-home extend the idea with small, evocative moments of childhood under two words: “Feed This.”
A declaration for the 250th
Timed to America’s 250th anniversary, Standard Practice also wrote a “Declaration of the End of Hunger in America” — drafted in the cadence of the original Declaration of Independence, signed by the initiative’s members and set to run in The Wall Street Journal and Forbes in early July.
The timing is live now: the foundation is matching qualifying donations up to $2.5 million between July 1-7, doubling what comes in during campaign week.
Treating a cause like a brand
For Partner, Creative Myles Rigg, the point was refusing the category’s clichés.
“Often, we’ve found that philanthropic messaging can start to look and feel the same, with familiar tropes used time and again,” Rigg said. “Philanthropies face many of the same pressures and skepticism as consumer brands… The best part is that if we do our job well, more kids can experience a safe and fulfilling childhood.”
Agency credits: Rigg (CD, writer), Nate Bruning (CD, art director), Schiff (strategy), Renae Newman (account lead) and Andrew Campbell (producer).
Learn more: Standard Practice
Nourish the American Dream
Contact: Myles Rigg, Partner, Creative — my***@**************ce.us | 719.963.2826
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