You may have seen this on other blogs in the last day or so, a print ad apparently for the WWF out of Brazil. It is beyond tasteless. I wasn’t going to comment on it, but then our tipline made it clear that a video spot was also produced.
The caption in the upper right reads: “The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.” The ad first starting becoming well known when it won the best of 2009 award at www.oneclub.org, which apparently promotes excellence in advertising. (UPDATE: it appears the ad award has been removed from this website but here is a screencap.)
But World Wildlife Fund is rejecting the ad, saying it was released without authorization by the Brazilian Ad agency DDB Brazil (www.ddb.com).
WWF condemned it, saying it was “categorically not solicited nor endorsed” by the organization. Looking at their main website though, http://www.panda.org/ you’d never know they are condemning this ad. The other WWF website does mention it here. Now according to Adfreak, they are accepting “joint blame” for the print ad.
But given the existence of this video, it appears they approved at least a production budget. The video is professionally done with top of the line CGI. It’s not some “rogue” that did this on a shoestring budget.
The video spot showing 2 planes flying into the twin towers, followed by even more, is probably the most tasteless and stupid environmental advertisement I’ve ever seen. If the goal was to shock people, it worked. But I doubt the shock effect is positive for WWF. What it does is piss people off.
Watch the video and see what I mean.
UPDATE: it appears DDB/WWF has made a DMCA complaint with YouTube. I expect DeSmog Blog’s Kevin Grandia and Climate Progress’ Joe Romm to express shock and outrage any minute now.
Alternate source to the video can be found here. http://creativity-online.com/work/wwf-tsunami-%28tvc%29/17193
In my opinion, it boggles the mind that anyone or any organization could be so dense as to not predict the public reaction to such a print ad, much less a video. I don’t care how noble you think your cause is, this hijacking of an American tragedy for earth awareness, is not only callous and insulting to the thousands of families affected by this tragedy, but it is probably the single most disgusting and stupid application of eco advertising I’ve ever witnessed.
The WWF initial “denial” of association with this ad just isn’t credible and is falling apart. Have you no shame?
From Hot Air:
WWF is finally admitting that they did play some role in approving the print spot, issuing a joint statement with the ad agency, DDB, that “the inexperience of some professionals on both sides” is to blame. And yet:
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…
A DDB Brasil spokesperson in Sao Paulo said a video version of the ad being circulated on the internet was not done or authorized by the agency or the client. She said DDB execs first saw the video, which features slightly different copy, on the internet and don’t know who created it.
Really? So some wily amateur video producer out there happened to stumble across a print ad that only ran once in South America and was so taken with it that he churned out a slick animated version on his own dime? Humor me for a moment and assume that this is, in fact, the handiwork of DDB. If so, exactly how many “inexperienced professionals” contributed to — and approved — the spot?
This spot comes from an ad agency employed by the same people that say “We Need a New Global Climate Deal“. Good luck with that, with this revelation, you’ve just committed global stupicide.
h/t to WUWT reader Corey
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Gene Nemetz (21:17:13) :
………………………….
It could be that there are people in the WWF that have ill feelings toward America and that is the point. They could be feeling that America cared about 9/11—something that happened to America—but not the tsunami victims—something that didn’t happen to America.
………………………………
That’s the subtext of the shock-ad. I hate it but it is clever. And definitely professionally produced and approved by the client. The agency & WWF are lying, lying, liers. Put that in print.
Always like to see the wingnuts get teary-eyed about the firefighters who died, and then turn right around and dump on the idea of dedicating this coming 9.11 to public service. Here’s the reality: Wingnuts hate public service, and hate the people who deliver it. But they love the death, because it leads to war, which is what they really list for.
Re: Steve Huntwork (22:38:50) :
Very prophetic. Instead of the video (which I haven’t seen yet) you get a message:
“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by DDB Brazil”
Does any one have a download link for the video, or an alternate YouTube link? Looks like DDB Brazil filed a copyright claim against the video and now its down.
That’s certainly the most stupid ad I’ve ever seen. Respects to families…
Re: crosspatch (01:44:50)
Very interesting – thank you. I formally studied and worked in soil science for a time. It is reassuring to hear of the wisdom your grandfather passed on to you & your family. Stories like yours are important and sites like RC & Tamino’s (not so) “Open Mind” should be ashamed for banning honest contributors and labeling them anti-environment when nothing could be further from the truth. I had presented myself as a sincere diplomat with a healthy interest in climate, but as soon as I started telling people about my background in parks, ecology, statistics, engineering, forest science, & outdoor-guiding – and explaining that I had only used 8 tanks of gas in my small car during the past 2 years and that I walk almost everywhere I go – I was no longer welcome to argue points at Tamino’s about El Nino & other natural climate factors. The alarmists appear desperate to avoid letting their followers become aware that there are non-alarmists who are more concerned about nature than they are. The distortion is intolerable. Thank you for your contribution to setting the record straight. The video Anthony has posted is a strong reminder to all of us of our shared-responsibility to restore basic honesty in a civilization that is toying with mass-delusion.
You have said it all. I only wish to add my two-penneth worth. This shows the true intellect & thought processes behind these organisations. It is not too dissimilar to the recent event over here where the remains of an elderly woman were dug up & stolen by animal liberation activists, because her son ran a farm that supplied laboratory rabbits to a leading drugs company. This sort of action, indirect or direct, is just plane SICK! My sympathies to anyone of the 9/11 families who have been hurt & offended by this imagery.
These people also curiously display a unique ignorance of the animal world. Over here the sickos broke in to a lab & “set free” some lab rabbits into the wild. Little did they know that within 24 hrs or thereabouts they would all be dead, either through foxes, other preditors, or more likely, a buck rabbit would have killed them outright on sight! These were bread for a laboratory, not for wild living.
I haven’t time to read all the comment so forgive me if I cover ground already mapped.
The tsunami is a natural catastrophe and whether we respect the planet or not it isn’t going to stop the next one happening. And no, tsunamis aren’t caused by global warming.
Terrorism is a man-made atrocity and since terrorists respect nothing we will do our damndest to stop the next one happening. And no, 9/11’s aren’t caused by global warming.
WWF should hang its head in deepest shame.
Like the other Australian’s here, I also am appalled at the utter arrogance and sheer callousness of the WWF in creating this so called ad.
I am appalled at the crass and deliberate insult that the WWF have directed at those who died in the 7 / 11 terrorism and the families of those who perished as a direct result of an almost unbelievably warped, twisted and totally evil ideology.
With an almost casual indifference to the utter anguish felt by millions, and not only by Americans, over the 7 / 11 terrorism, the WWF video reinforces this anguish by having multiple numbers of airliners pouring into the New York skyline and directed towards the city, all apparently intent on destroying as many more innocent lives as possible.
Obviously the WWF believes it pays handsomely to shock!
And for what?
Just to promote their own warped and twisted ideology that rates human life other than their own of course, as an unnecessary impediment to achieving their ultimate goals.
I can only conclude from this video that the leadership and membership of the WWF are totally indifferent to human suffering, and all in the name of their own warped and twisted ideology which, as the WWF seems to be intent on demonstrating in this video, is as totally evil as Al Quaida and it’s twisted and pitiless ideology.
My apologies to all Americans for the wrong date above.
Anger, and I got it wrong. 9 / 11.
For some totally unknown reason I woke soon after midnight [ in Australia ] on that night and wandered around the house until I switched on the telly.
The Twin Towers were burning and I don’t know why but somehow I felt very uneasy although rationally in my sleepiness, I knew that it was some third grade late night disaster movie.
After a few minutes watching I returned to bed but did not sleep very well as those scenes kept on coming back.
Of course in the morning here in Australia, the real truth of what I had been looking at during that night hit me.
It was not some third rate late night movie but the deliberate destruction of hundreds of human lives based purely on belief in a totally evil ideology.
For the WWF to use this to promote it’s own pathetic ideology really shows just how callous and warped these people have also become.
Video is pulled down per DDB copyright claim, but you can still see it linked here: http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=138775
It occured to me just after I posted that… how can they simultaneously claim they had nothing to do with the video ad yet still hold the copyright to it?
To our Aussie friends, thanks for the comforting words mates.
@Stu & Paul Vaughan: Isn’t it time to rethink some of your associations? How is it possible to make common cause with people who propagate such filth?
Here on this blog are people descended from farmer stock who are directly and effectively committed to maintaining the land. There are ranchers, foresters, wildlife managers and every other occupation that is connected to the land. Here are scientists who will not condemn efforts to create renewable energy but pull no punches on the cost and effects of doing so. Here are scientists conducting climate research through observation and not just through GCM. Here are people dedicated to scientific rigor and the search for the truth. No “the science is settled” talk on this blog.
WWF video from youtube, mirrored, 2919531 bytes
http://www.mirrorfox.com/_rxspyxfj
Hmmm… I just realized I have a WWF t-shirt probably given to me by a relative a few years ago (I am the only climate skeptic/realist in my family). It has a big WWF logo on the back, and on the front pocket it has a picture of the earth with the caption “Saving Life On Earth”. It’s a perfectly good t-shirt, so I can’t just throw it out, yet to me, it might as well have a Nazi swastika on it. I think my wife has some fabric pens and can suitably alter that logo.
It’s sad that environmental groups like Greenpeace and WWF have been taken over by an ideology so powerful that it completely negates anything good they were trying to achieve. They simply have no moral scruples whatsoever.
So if, in fact, “… DDB execs first saw the video, which features slightly different copy, on the internet and don’t know who created it.” Why then has the video been pulled from YouTube with the explanation of “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by DDB Brasil.”
The original embedded video has been pulled, but I found another copy here:
No surprise knowing who are the stupids patrons of WWF.
“Just the Facts” link above works for me in the UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1mFoTQNivc
I admit when I watched it I was more confused than anything. How do you “respect” a planet? Or “conserve” it? The only threat to the planet is the Sun going nova in 5 million years time. And it won’t even notice.
btw, where are those guys who were shouting “censorship” when Anthony asked for a video to be pulled on Youtube?
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/618811/7ab2db2d/index.html#80762061
Another copy on the Dutch shock-site “Geenstijl”
It fits the picture.
WWF is an organization promoting EXTREME ALARMISM which has become it’s trade mark.
Yesterday the theme of the melting arctic sea ice was in the news again, this time stating that hundreds of thousands would drown if the arctic melted.
Scary, very scary.
To the WWF, the truth does not matter, the message content , the science, good taste, respect for out culture, our past, our feelings and emotions, all don’t matter.
Let it be clear, WWF is fighting against human civilization.
They hate the Western Civilization and humanity as much as the murdering extremists responsible for the 9/11 attack in the first place.
I am quite sure the Arabs will love the movie.
Dear Grant, sorry to say but DDB Brazil has removed your copy, too. 😉
The fact that the video was even considered and then produced shows the disconnect between reality and ideology in some people’s minds. Sure it was cancelled/pulled, whatever, but it was made. Where were the minds and hearts of all the people involved with the concept and production?
I am Canadian but will never forget where I was when news on 9/11 began coming in. I am appalled by the WWF.
So’s the link I copied.
Here’s the video up on Break.com:
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/9/crazy-9-11-wwf-ddb-commercial-1180487.html
Give it a thumbs up and comment on it so that it makes their front page.