Mar 29 2011
What exactly were they thinking?
It would seem that all I recently blog about is heartfelt (at least I hope they are heartfelt) attempts at advertising, which either failed or are just too offensive for words. The video below is no exception I’m afraid.
It has been 10 years since that dreadful morning happened, but I still have to question WWF’s motivation behind using this kind of iconography in support of their ideas.
The ad seems to have been created to reinforce the message of nature’s enormous power over humans, but is there much more to it than shock value? Does it actually sell the point it wanted to sell? I seriously doubt that. Because my thoughts after seeing this video were:
1) That’s super disrespectful
2) Many people died tragically at the beginning of the XXI century
3) … And that is pretty much it.
It doesn’t make me want to go to rallies for their cause, join any kind of environmental organization or even recycle my trash more often. It just makes me sad. And I am quite sure my sadness does not help the planet. In fact it may actually make it worse off with all the extra chocolate packaging I’ll be disposing off.
So after coming up with an idea for an ad, one should always ask oneself: does it serve my purpose? Does it invoke the feelings I want it to invoke? To refer to the AIDA model, does it push me towards action? No? Then it’s back to work for you, guys!