Wed 9 Sep 2009
Throttling the Creative Engine
Posted by Lisa Hickey under advertising, branding
Ad Headline: The Tsunami Killed 100 Times More People Than 9/11
Guest Post by Jim Mitchem
Last week DDB Brasil was publicly scrutinized for publishing a print ad and :30 television spot for the World Wildlife Foundation that caused quite a stir in the advertising community. There is some speculation as to whether WWF even knew about the campaign or whether DDB executives approved it. The ads were submitted in the 2009 Cannes Lions festival. Fingers will be pointed, people will lose jobs. But this post isn’t about the politics or egos. It’s about the creative development.
The print ad, which won a Cannes, shows a litany of passenger jets taking aim on Manhattan, ala September 11th. The headline talks to the number of deaths caused by an act of terrorism versus the number of deaths caused by natural disasters. The purpose of the ad is put the raw power of our planet into proper perspective. And it works. Kind of. Which is to say that you don’t tug on superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger. And you damn sure don’t use one of history’s worst spectacles of hate as the backdrop for promoting any company or organization.
My father always said, “It’s easier to run on a fly ball than to run back on one.” This is the one piece of advice from him that I utilize in my work every day. In fact, when I think through any communications problem I tend to run all around the periphery of first - to see how far logic extends in the brain. And frankly, if I were working on this project for WWF, I’d have come up with something similar to what they created. Only, I’d have written it down and shared it with my colleagues as a way to set the limits of periphery. Not as a realistic solution. Why? Because of the rules of cooth. Yes, we’re in advertising, but at some point we must draw the line. DDBs decision to publicly promote (in an advertising contest) this ad as a way to flex its conceptual muscle was proof to me that they lack cooth. The fact that this singular idea was produced beyond the napkin into a fully-flushed out print ad and television spot is shocking. Where is the cooth?
Jim Mitchem has his own provocative blog, Obsessed with Conformity. You can also find him on Twitter @smashadv
7 Responses to “ Throttling the Creative Engine ”
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jim_Mitchem. Jim_Mitchem said: RT @lisahickey: Guest post on my blog today by @smashadv about WWF’s provocative "ads" comparing tsunami to 9/11 ~ http://bit.ly/IGmTg [...]
Sure the ad agency neglected to air out their idea. Which will continue to happen as long as awards programs reward balls, not cooth.
As far as I’m concerned the concept of the campaign was to educate people on the fact that way greater atrocities happen in the world all the time, which is undeniably true.
When a natural disaster occurs there is no one to point a finger at, no one to blame, no one to hate.
If the events of 9/11 happened in another city outside of the United States, the empathy that Americans have for the victims and all their families would not be as prevalent.
I don’t view this campaign as being “ballsy” but taking an iconic moment in history and using it to educate people of the world. To make people look outside of the bubble that they live in.
As a Ground Zero resident and eyewitness, this freaked me out. I agree with you Lisa, this is uncouth.
A graphic designer once explained a similar system in solving a design problem. She pointed out examples of “final” design decisions that were simply first or second iterations of a solution — immature, brash designs that could have benefitted from more consideration. Not only were they less appealing visuals, they harmed the product in their shallowness.
Question: Why do people stop the process early? Time constraints? Money? Or they somehow do not make the connections required to go beyond a brash solution?
Hmmm. So many ways to respond to this post, the ad, the comments. My gut reaction was “Wow, I can’t believe they did that” meaning someone could have taken so much pain and used it to their advantage. Second thought was that it was an interesting visual and did make the point. I think uncouth is an understatement though - in the global society we’re in, we shouldn’t use anyone’s or any *country’s* tragedy this way.
The thing I really don’t get is that it won at Cannes. What were THEY thinking?
Hi Jim. Growing up in the midwest, my dad and his friends used to joke about someone or something lacking couth. Being a group of decent, hard-working men, I think they defined it as lacking in class. I hadn’t had occasion to remember the word or the circumstances of its use until your post. I think it perfectly sums up this ad.
thanks all for the comments — interestingly enough, it was very polarizing when posted on Facebook — there were people there who liked it and thought it effective.
And the truth is, something provocative will always be effective in some ways. The fact that this is the subject of such discussion, I bet would have the agency doing cartwheels, as “proof” that it worked. It may be a turning point in history that proof of effectiveness will be measured by “do people talk about it”?
I was puzzled, however, not only by the blatant disregard for trying to capitalize on a tragedy, but by the action that I was supposed to take at the end of the day. I’m supposed to respect my planet because it kills more people than humans are capable of? Maybe it’s me, but I’m missing a logical connection somewhere. You’re showing me two totally unconnected events (except for the fact that a lot of people died during them), events I was truly powerless over. And so now I’m supposed to…do what?
So many odd things about this campaign. Thanks Jim, for putting it out there.