It’s been eight years since 9/11 and the horror of that day will never be forgotten. So, why would an advertising agency even dream up an ad with visual references to dozens of planes flying into New York City’s skyscrapers? Well, an advertising agency did just that.
The advertisement is titled “Tsunami” and was done by DDB Brasil for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The ad states: “The Tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it. www.wwf.org”
The problem is the WWF did not authorize the advertisement. So, what is it? According to Advertolog it is a “spec ad” from the ad agency seeking to do business with the WWF. The ad has caused a furor around the Internet forcing the WWF to issue the following 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 seeking our business 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.”
Was this careless creativity gone too far? Why did an ad company do this? Is this “ad” a political scare tactic aimed at the American public and the Obama administration?
Correction: According to an article in today’s New York Daily News the ad was created by an ad agency in Brazil to run in Israel. It was not created by an Israeli ad company as first reported.
Consumer Traveler readers, what do you think?
Totally tasteless- I should know, I was in NYC Sept. 12 – 18 cleaning up. The sheer devastation is something I’ll remember forever, as well as the bewildered survivors walking around lower Manhattan in a daze holding photos of missing relatives and asking if anyone had seen them.
Working for a humanitarian agency, I’ve also been to Indonesia to help that country recover from the tsunami, and yes, that was horrendous and heatbreaking as well.
Both incidents deserve dignity and respect. This ad agency should go out of business. No one should try to inspire ‘competition’ between tragic events.
How did you get from Brasil to Israel? You are complaining about an ad and show your own prejudice? According to the internet:
Advertising Agency: DDB Brazil
Executive Creative Directors: Sergio Valente, Rodolfo Sampaio, Julio Andery
Creative Directors: Sergio Valente, Rodolfo Sampaio, Julio Andery, Guilherme Jahara
Copywriters: Adriano Matos, Rodolfo Sampaio
Art Director: Guilherme Jahara
Photographer: Getty Images
Illustrator: Big Studios
Art Buyer: Carmen Castillo, Carolina Galastri, Clariana da Costa
Account Supervisor: Alcir Gomes Leite, Ana Paula Grassmann
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Heloisa Helena de Oliveira
Producer: Nereu Marinho, Edson Harada
Published: May 2009
Where do you see Israel or Israeli names?
Hello Jeff,
Look to the left on http://www.advertolog.com/wwf/print-outdoor/tsunami-327351/
Released: August 2009
Advertiser: WWF
Advertising Agency: DDB BRASIL
Country: ISRAEL
Category: Public awareness messages
Not being prejudice, just reporting the facts.
Best
Anita
I think the details might have been a bit fuzzy when this situation first came to light.
The ad was created by a Braziilian firm, it ran in Israel. Hopefully, Anita can confirm. Either way, there is no ‘prejudice’ involved, just some first run confusion.
Hi Laura,
You are correct. Here is a story in the New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_wwf_appalled_by_911_terror_ad.html
Seems it was created back in December. Still, the timing of the release of this is suspicious.
My gawd, Laura, I hope you were wearing protective breathing equipment! That day continues to kill many resuers/helpers.
I, too, will NEVER FORGOT the hundreds and hundreds of photo’s posted everywhere. There’s a long wall at the Times Square Metro Station. The first time I saw that wall literally packed with pictures was shocking. That wall is hundreds of feet long. It’s empty today, of course, but everytime I walk past that wall, my mind revisits that day I first encountered all those people’s “faces” who were missing.
I went walking in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Walked on the Brooklyn Bridge and for a moment, looked up to the skyline. Yes, thought of 9-11 and the emptiness in the sky.
This AD reminds me of a game that came out a couple of years ago. The families of the 9-11 victims were outraged.
Want do you think?
POOR TASTE: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/games/play/784/
No, Frank – I was not wearing any protective breathing equipment (dumb, I know, just not a first thought). I remember the air being thick with black sorta oily smelling smoke. I wear disposable contact lenses and had to replace them as much as several times day, they got so coated they were ruined. I haven’t had any suspicious health problems as of yet and I’m so glad in way I went – I really got a first hand understanding of the evil of terrorism.
I have some great (in the sense of meaning) photos of the area around ground zero, although we didn’t have the time to take photos while working the site. The impromtu memorials, the nearby church covered with messages, the numerous flags draped everywhere, huge construction vehicles hauling the twisted metal girders away. Some of the most poignant are pictures of cop cars parked on Canal and surrounding side streets covered in an ashy substance (the ash was the concrete that formerly covered the Towers and anything else vaporized with it), the sight of which spoke volumes. As I told some of my fellow volunteers, the partially crushed and coated cars were still there because their drivers and passengers were dead – among the first rescuers to race into the buildings who were trapped when they fell.
Never forget.
Even outside of this tasteless ad, a tsunami isn’t something that the WWF, even given infinite resources, would be able to protect us against. If they were talking about a cyclone or hurricane, maybe, but not an earthquake-triggered tsunami.
Tastelessness is tastelessness, and this goes well beyond that. A tragedy is a tragedy. It doesn’t matter the subject or the country.
@SirWired-
Interestingly enough, the WWF doesn’t concern itself with people at all – it’s mission is to primarily protect animals – they have no capacity for disaster relief.
As much as I’m an animal lover with 5 birds, a turtle, 4 fish tanks, a koi pond, and a ‘foster’ dog, it says something that this organization will injudiciously use two large scale human disasters to promote animal protection. I know PETA has always been ripe for criticism that its members actually like animals more than people, using this ad in such way might paint WWF with the same brush. I just can’t believe in their insensitive little minds they didn’t throw in a Katrina reference, too.
Laura
Perhaps you need to read the article again. WWF have said they did not authorize this spec ad. Obviously the company that created it won’t get the wwf contract. To whose insensitive little minds are you referring? It looks like you mean the WWF, but I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way…..since you are cognizant of “first run confusion.”
Sometimes people make bad judgments. We can only hope the brazilian company will learn from this fiasco.
Laura, thank you for participating in the 9/11 aftermath. You have earned a good place in heaven for being there and your efforts.
This ad is offensive at best, but does nothing for the WWF either. A tsunami cannot be controlled by anything man can do, so to even attempt to tie it into 9/11 is ridiculous.
Anita,
You were just reporting the facts?
Then you obviously went onto the DDB website: http://www.ddb.com/ and found that while they do, indeed, have an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, they have no offices in Israel. More than that, your link just shows Israel mentioned while all the data (as I put in my original comment) refers to the Brazil office. And since you are so careful with your facts you noticed that it referred to the ad being done for the WWF ‘company’ rather than organization. As we say, G.I.G.O.
But what concerns me is your original wording, which you obviously changed when challenged, juxtaposing Israel with “Is this “ad” a political scare tactic aimed at the American public and the Obama administration?”
What do you call that?
Hi Jeff,
I posted this last night and it was noted that the ad agency was in Israel. This has been clarified. As for my opinion at the end – I stand by it. I think this was released for a reason to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary. One must ask: Who has the most to gain from something like this?
Best
Anita
Oh, and that website claiming that this print/outdoor ad was for the Israeli market! Sorry, people don’t write English ads for Israel. Perhaps Arabic, Hebrew or even Russian, but not English.
Hi Jeff,
This ad is getting big attention from the networks. I believe we will get the full story very soon.
Best
Anita
Lots of publicity for DDB Brazil… and for the World Wildlife Fund, although you say they had nothing to do with it.
@Mary:
There’s a lot of confusion over this ad, with maybe more clarification to come.
While WWF U.S. disclaimed any responsibility for this ad, others claim WWF Brazil had it created (albeit without clearing it with the parent WWF, apparently) and then later ‘rejected it’ when called on the carpet over the offensive nature. (Bear in mind it was created back in Dec 2008 and the uproar has only erupted mostly after the ad agency submitted it to a contest and won an award for it). It does seem suspicious that it was around for 9 months before the parent WWF ‘became aware of it’ (just yesterday) and disclaimed it.
So, if WWF had any involvement, no matter how slim in its creation, my comments, which merely ruminate on what others might think of it, stand. According to others, though, WWF likes certain types of people very much – those with corporate money. Past donors (who seem in conflict with their mission) include Exxon, Chevron, Philip Morris and Mobil. (I personally love Exxon for helping save the tigers, though). Working for a non-profit, every time I’ve met WWF folks at conferences, they seem like good people.
And, if its any consolation, the Brazilian ad agency fired the team that created it (recently).
Ugh, that ad makes me sick.
Is 9/11 imagery the hot new thing?
http://img4.imageshack.us/ifs/556/img149/2/724full.jpg
Hmm, has anyone else noticed that when you click on the ‘Members Only’ link at the Advertolog site to view the Ad image full sized
( http://www.advertolog.com/wwf/print-outdoor/tsunami-327351/ ) the full image is viewable (and downloadable) anyway?
And does the old adage that ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’ apply here too?
from http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=138775 :
An obscure ad that ran once in a small Sao Paulo newspaper months ago has come back to haunt DDB Brasil and its conservation client, the WWF in Brazil, in the latest example of the internet exposing a local ad to global condemnation. Sergio Valente, president of DDB Brasil, said the ad was presented to the WWF in Brazil in December 2008 and approved; it then ran once in a small local paper. “When I saw it, I said, ‘Stop running that ad,'” Mr. Valente said.
Since you believe in conspiracy theories and hidden agendas, perhaps you would like to comment on who tried to link Israel to this ad and what they had to gain from it (in your words).
Here is a contrarian point of view. Yes the ad is offensive. However, people reading this site (Tripso) are likely a bit more sensitive to the events of 911. Anita’s husband is a pilot, many agents had clients that were affected, I live outside of DC and had many friends in the Pentagon, etc.
As a nation, we are very forgetful of this event and it is an afterthought to most. Today’s 3rd graders were not alive when it occurred.
Throw in that it was done for and by companies that were not targeting a US audience, and I can see where it did see the light of day.
We have ads for the issues in Darfur, have we checked with Darfur to see if they are considered politically correct for them?
Yes, tasteless for sure, and had it been done by a US agency for a US client, I would have jumped all over it; but if we as a nation have begun to forget, how can we condemn others who quite possibly were never really effected?
Uh, John F, the burgeoning worldwide controversy over this ad seems to indicate it outraged a lot of folks that are not even Consumer Traveler readers, so your theory that we’re all overly sensitive to this matter doesn’t wash. Before we covered it, media in places as diverse as CBS Connecticut, Ad Age, The Guardian (UK), NBC New York, digg.com, flickr, twitter, youtube and blogs all over the world were outraged over the matter.
And, my cop senses were dead on – it appears now the ad was ‘approved’ before it was ‘disclaimed.’
I don’t think you have to live in NYC, DC, or even America to be outraged over this. I was equally appalled that they would also invoke the Indian Ocean tsunami in manner that seemed to suggest mankind somehow deserves natural disasters. I can show you photos of thousands of Indonesians dead in an Aceh mosque courtyard – no one deserves that.
In light of the fact that WWF approved the ad before they disowned it, they owe a lot of people a big apology and need to stop hiding behind the blame game aimed at the Brazilian ad firm.
Laura, ad companies come up with dozens of ideas, but the client is responsible for the final choice. As WWF clearly rejected this offensive, completely-unrelated-to-WWF THING, I don’t think we can hold them responsible in any way. And no one would want to publicize their association with something that ugly, no matter how tenous the link, thus the fact that we’re just learning about it now. As someone far away from the horror that you and so many brave NY-ers endured, I am sickened that anyone would propose using this tragedy, this evil crime for any purpose whatsoever. It dishonours the survivors and the victims.
On another subject, I’m curious about your comment about Exxon “saving the tigers”. Exxon is the company that for years used a tiger in its advertisements and then unceremoniously dumped their mascot when they changed ad campaigns. At present, he resides at the Western Pennsylvania Wild Animal Orphanage. (I believe he’s Sampson if you take the online tour.) Note that the orphanage, a registered 501C(3) run by a very committed veterinarian, has repeatedly approached Exxon about donating to the facility in light of their connection with Sampson. Exxon, the multibillion dollar entity, has refused to donate a penny to support this tiger that they happily exploited for years and then abandoned. For the record.
@Isembard.
It is true that ad agencies do come up with lots of ideas they pitch, but the most recent news associated with this ad is that it was approved by the WWF affiliate to run, and then only later pulled and disclaimed. So, in the first instance, WWF didn’t reject it. I had suspected that all along, because frankly (and I once worked for an ad agency) you might pitch hundreds of ideas, but none of them hit print until approved by the client. (Among other reasons, it too expensive to set up). This ad appeared in at least one print publication before the word was put out to yank it.
And as far as Exxon, they can’t support EVERY tiger sanctuary program. They never ‘owned’ the tiger used in the commercials. The animals used in commericals, movies and ads are owned and trained by entertainment companies. In reality, all Exxon did was ‘rent’ a tiger.
And they do donate money to several programs dedicated to helping tigers in their NATIVE habitat. From 1995 to 2005, Exxon donated over $9M to tiger programs. They also have a partnership with the US National Fish & Wildlife Foundation. (I guess here is where I say just because they don’t support your pet cause doesn’t mean they don’t support any). The tiger logo was somewhat retired when the company merged with Mobil.
I’m not suggesting that Exxon is a perfect corporate partner in every way, but I like tigers and am happy they do something to help. Many other extremely large corporations do NOTHING.