Musée de la Publicité - "Advertising the Great Causes"

Today I visited the Museum of Advertising in Paris to see the exposition "Advertising the Great Causes". This expo covered advertising campaigns about drugs, alochol, AIDS, littering, the environment, human rights, poverty, arms, all of the Great Causes.

I think that this sector of advertising is one of the most difficult to produce. I recently worked on a Bollocks to Poverty (Action Aid) brief and had decided with my 'project partner' that we didn't want to guilt-trip our target audience. It is the obvious choice and is the choice that has been taken by many advertisers before us. I think it probably worked in the beginning but now the public has got fed up of hearing bad news and just shuts it out. Advertising for the great causes is having to be more creative and show matters in a less gloomy light.

Here are a few of the adverts I found the most interesting:

"Non-drinking water kills 8 million people a year in the world. Make the policies act by signing the petition at www.yourdropofwater.org"

"Chaque jour 15 personnes sont victimes du non-respect des feux - en ville, il n'y a pas que des voitures accidentées"
"Every day 15 people are victims of the non-respect of traffic lights - in town, it's not just the cars that are broken" - difficult to translate exactly...

Surfrider's Association ad showing a rubber glove flapping in the wind on a beach. It seemed to represent the sea/beach calling out for help.

"300,000 child soldiers dream of simply being children, www.amnesty.fr"
"300,000 enfants soldats rêvent simplement d'être enfants, www.amnesty.fr"
(Sorry for the window reflections in this pic!)