Ethiopian Review

By now, you’ve seen that terrible ad from the World Wildlife Foundation and agency DDB comparing 9/11 to the 2005 Tsunami.

WWF said they approved neither the ad’s production nor its publication. But it actually ran once in a small Brazilian newspaper.

How could that happen?

A reader offers an insider’s theory:

It is what is known in the trade as a scam ad.

The rules of ad competitions specify an ad has to run in some form of media to be eligible for entry. So when ad agencies want to win a prize they make an edgy ad which would not normally run in mainstream media, get an OK from the client, any OK will do, and run it just once in some obscure local media, most likely at the agency’s expense. The client isn’t paying so the decision making process on their part is pretty lax.

Things like WWF, Amnesty International & Film Festivals are favourites for this kind of thing because they allow for more scope to be radical than selling shampoo for example, and they are not competing in the rough and tumble of the commercial market place so they are less sensitive about their brand equity.

Scam ads are often in poor taste, deliberately so because people confuse being offensive with being original.

The theory resonates with us because we’ve seen this kind of thing before.

Back in May, cable channel History got in a bit of hot water after ads comparing Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor deaths leaked online. In 2006, ads supposedly created for MTV comparing 9/11 to world hunger. There was also the fake 2008 ads about teen sex supposedly from JC Penney.

But really, words don’t these ads justice. You should see them!

(By Nicholas Carlson | TBI)