• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 12, 2009

Celebrity support and earnest calls to action are standard for any volunteer recruiting effort. Hoping to add some viral magic to the formula, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, along with Interpublic Group's Gotham, are asking people to join the likes of Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood in inviting others to "Make an Imprint" through community activism.

TV, print, outdoor and Web advertising has been deployed over the past week to drive audiences to MandelaDay.com where they are given mash-up technology to insert video of themselves alongside celebrities -- all displaying the campaign's official open-hand symbol -- which they can then send to friends, as well as post on Facebook, YouTube, and similarly-social platforms.

Designed by Core Industries, the site also allows visitors to sign up for volunteer work directly, and learn more about the broader initiative -- orchestrated by Gotham and the Nelson Mandela Foundation -- to raise awareness for social issues, inspire volunteer work, and commemorate the former South African President's 91st Birthday, July 18, as Mandela Day.

The effort builds on 46664 -- Mandela's global HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign -- which hosted a concert last year on his 90th Birthday.

"They brought us in around November [of last year] to figure out what to do next," said Peter McGuinness, CEO of the New York City-based Gotham. "We said, 'Why don't we go farther upstream,' which meant tackling the root causes of HIV/AIDS."

Addressing such a range of issues -- race, inequality, gender inequality, poverty, and lack of education -- also, in theory, appeals to a far larger base of potential volunteers, according to McGuinness. "That was the breakthrough," he said.

Perhaps as a result, in less than a week, the site has registered over 50,000 volunteers.

Gotham developed all creative work for the larger integrated campaign for Mandela Day, all of which features a call-to-action asking individuals for 67 minutes of their time -- a figure correlating to the 67 years Mandela has spent fighting social injustice.

Last week, the agency unveiled an art installation at Grand Central Terminal in Vanderbilt Hall dedicated to telling the story of Nelson Mandela and his values, vision and accomplishments.

Without disclosing budget numbers, McGuinness said the scope of the overall campaign is not unprecedented for Gotham. "The importance of it is a different question," he noted.

Founded back in 1994, Gotham was essentially a traditional ad agency when McGuinness took the helm in March of last year. "I was adamant about making it more integrated," he said. "Today, we work through the line, not that there is a line anymore."

For E*Trade, the agency launched an online "investing revolution," which it says led to consumers opening up 1 million accounts in less than 18 months. Also, a campaign it did for Priceline.com was responsible for boosting site traffic by 73% year-over-year, while increasing net income by 66%, and gross travel bookings by 58%.

Last year, Gotham reported $663 million in billings, and $62 million in revenue. To date, it has also done work for Maybelline, Pfizer, Bausch & Lomb, Yellowbook, FreshDirect, Bank of America, and Newman's Own, among others.