Hasta La Creative!

This week, the ad community was put on display by an ad leaked out of DDB Brazil. The client, the World Wildlife Fund, was none too excited over this release (or was it?), and the pundits were salivating at the opportunity to rip this spot apart with their fake outrage.

The ad features a very moving truth and the media uproar displays a few ‘inconvenient truths’ about Americans. First, we seem to only care about ourselves. Second, we can’t stomach a brutally honest message. If three people die in a shooting in the US, we talk about it nonstop for months, but if 100 people die in a mudslide in Taiwan, we barely bat an eyelash. This spot tells a great truth about the power of mother nature and is effective in portraying it. It has made me think about mother nature more than anything since Hurricane Katrina, in part because I, too, am a silly American who tends to think only about American lives.

We’ve become distanced from reality. When the ad community attempts to make a hard-hitting PSA to curtail drinking/texting while driving, drug use, or to impress upon people the awesome power of mother nature, we’re forced to go soft for the sake of the populace. Why are we such wimps? The events of September 11, 2001 were horrific, and I don’t see how this spot is, in any way, attempting to make our tragedy seem like anything less.

This creative concept is brilliant. It is so simple, so logical, and so impressively gut wrenching. More people should take a moment to get past the fake outrage and digest the information being presented. Still, the point of the campaign was to create awareness of the awesome power this planet has over us, but I think it accomplished that and then some. This might just be the most efficient use of a client’s money this year.

Pete Kahn is a Product Insights Specialist, blogger and aspiring writer. Feel free to leave a comment, follow Pete on Twitter, or view his profile on LinkedIn. As always, thanks for reading.