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World Wildlife Fund's New 9/11 Ad: Moving or totally tasteless?
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
World Wildlife Fund's New 9/11 Ad: Moving or totally tasteless?
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| adfreak.com |
| Coulda been worse? |
The text at top right reads: "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it." (Click here for a larger version.)
David Gianatasio at adfreak.com says of this award-winning World Wildlife Fund ad: "Unfortunately, respect is the main thing lacking here. Exploiting one tragedy to try to prevent another is just stupid and self-defeating, and will always backfire."
I agree. But what are your thoughts? With the eighth anniversary of 9/11 only a week away, is it still too soon to reference the tragedy in order to get us behind a pretty unrelated cause? Or do we need this level of shock value in order to really think about big, important issues? Holler in the comments.
[UPDATE, Wednesday, 8 a.m.]: Thanks for the updates, commenters. Looks like the WWF had nothing to do with this poster, and condemns the Brazilian ad agency that used the organization's logo without their permission. Here's the statement:
"WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication. It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency in Brazil. The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from websites where it is being currently featured. We strongly condemn the messages and the images portrayed in this ad. On behalf of WWF, here in the US and around the world, we can promise you this ad does not in any way reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people of our organization."
That's a powerful image, I like it.
Some 40 years after seeing an image of a tear rolling down the face of an old Native American, who'd been canoeing through a trash strewn lake, and I still feel the emotion. Might even be why I never litter. Now, that's powerful creative. This? This is amateurish.... and yes, extremely tasteless. Don Draper would have taken a huge hit of bourbon, and sent these hacks back to the drawing board.
Please update this post. This is an unauthorized ad and WWF has issued a statement condemning it: http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem13540.html
Hey Carolyn! How about a little correction here??? http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem13540.html Almost every media outlet has updated this story. The WWF did NOT authorize this ad. It was a rejected spec that the ad agency submitted to a contest WITHOUT WWF's knowledge. And before people dumbly follow up with, well, it won an award! It won a MERIT RECOGNITION. One of seven in that subcategory alone. There were several hundred awards given out. Of course WWF wouldn't have found out immediately. Sheesh. Social media FAILURE. Can you imagine how much money they've lost on this?
Horrible. Disgusting.
This ad is NOT horrible or disgusting! Yes, 9/11 was horrible and sad! but were the lives lost by the tsunami any less important? a loss of a life is a loss of a life and no matter how it was taken, its terrible and sad! People need to stop taking things so offensively. This ad is just trying to show people how many people were killed.
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