Become a cancer researcher by downloading our app, Vodafone tells customers
Vodafone is telling its customers they can label themselves as a cancer researcher simply by downloading an app.
The project masterminded for the telco by creative agency J Walter Thompson claims that the Garvan Institute of Medical Research is so short of computing power that it needs to use the processing power of mobile phones while they are being recharged overnight.
The ‘DreamLab’ app has now gone live on Apple and Google’s app stores.
‘DreamLab claims to help cancer research by providing researches with access to “supercomputers” to crunch data, despite not using computers as part of the DreamLab project.’
Something doesn’t compute, oh wait yes it does. It’s a blatant awards grab for a charity to win lions for jwt and brand love for Vodafail for helping cure cancer.
Gag.
HUGE stake in the ground. I really really really hope that what’s being sold here is a reality. It goes without saying that anchoring a brand on anything relating to ‘the big C’ is very dangerous territory, but not so much if the claims can be supported…
This, and the Volvo campaign showing near death experiences of children, are the two live campaigns that make me squirm, but not in an ‘only bad’ way.
Hey Mumbrella
It should go without saying, the big credit that is missing here, is the app developer – b2bcloud / Transpire. app nothing to do with jwt.
They’re credited as app developer on the Dreamlab website, in the ‘who’s behind dreamlab’ section
http://www.vodafone.com.au/foundation/dreamlab
No chance of winning awards as it’s a direct copy.
https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2015/white-pencil-creativity-for-good/24209/samsung-power-sleep/
what?
Vodafone has been doing this since 2015…
All JWT has done is literally make a campaign to shout about it.
“The project masterminded for the telco by creative agency J Walter Thompson”…? Not cool.
Just some reference points:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dreamlab-solve-cancer-while-you-sleep-josh-guest
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/vodafone-dreamlab-accelerating-cancer-research/
https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/588483/vodafone-backs-smartphone-based-distributed-computing-cancer-research/
To all of the people that have updated their LinkedIn please don’t… it is tacky AF
It’s worse than tacky.
It devalues those who actually do cancer research.
This isn’t JWT. Ogilvy was speaking about this in 2013. Been around for ages.
If I was thinking of donating $50 to cancer research, is it better than I download the app instead?