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hats off to the best Top outdoor ad award goes to a campaign in South Africa Jun 26, 2009 We tend to think of alternative media as cheeky and fun, and indeed much of it consists of wild, outrageous campaigns that make passersby do a doubletake and often burst into laughter. But alternative media also lends itself to very serious messages. Just as it has the ability to amuse, it has the capacity to shock people into seeing their world in different terms. There's no better example of that than a recent campaign in South Africa for the Zimbabwean, a newspaper published in South Africa by Zimbabwean journalists exiled by corrupt leader Robert Mugabe. Earlier this week, the campaign won the grand prix prize for best outdoor advertising at the Cannes Lions 56th International Advertising Festival awards, and it was one of several outdoor campaigns with serious messages to earn recognition. The Zimbabwean campaign, a highly charged message attacking the Mugabe regime, was profiled by Media Life three months ago. The agency, TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris in South Africa, chose a truly unique medium to deliver its message: Zimbabwe’s near-worthless currency. It printed the ads on the actual bills and put them up on billboards, pamphlets and walls around Johannesburg. Taglines included, “It’s cheaper to print this on money than paper” and “Thanks to Mugabe this money is wallpaper.” The bills gave a tangible reminder of just how awful things had gotten under Mugabe, at the same time building awareness of the newspaper and its no- punches-pulled coverage of Mugabe's corrupt regime. Among other campaigns with a political or social message to receive awards was one executed for Greenpeace by DDB Paris. The medium: boomerangs, those curve-shaped things you throw into the air and watch come back at you. The messages were printed on the boomerangs and the boomerangs left around the city. The messages described small ways in which people are hurting the planet. They included, “Genetically modified foods are great: We can eat any type of fruit all year” and “I could take the subway to work but my car is so much more comfortable.” The gimmick, of course, is that just as boomerangs always comes back to you, so does the seemingly harmless behavior described on the boomerangs. This campaign won a gold prize, as did another campaign with a serious theme, this one from Ogilvy Stockholm for United Nations Sweden. The agency collected everyday objects found in the war zone in Georgia, such as jeans, dresses, pictures and the remains of a car that had been blown up. Ogilvy then framed these objects and hung the frames in public areas like parks and bus shelters. Beneath each object was a brief description of who it belonged to and where it was found, along with an appeal to help the more than 280,000 Georgian refugees by donating to a U.N. fund. One final serious-themed outdoor campaign also recognized with a Cannes gold prize came from Australia. Leo Burnett Sydney, working for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, organized what it termed a worldwide vote to send a message to world leaders about global warming. The point of the campaign was to encourage people to turn off their lights for Earth Hour earlier this year, asking them to “vote with their light switch.” Residents in more than 4,000 cities in 88 countries took part. They also submitted pictures of worldwide landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and Big Ben with their lights off. The Fund will submit the results of the so-called vote, including stats on web mentions, Twitter usage and so forth, to a group of world leaders gathering in Copenhagen in December. The Cannes Lions festival, which began Sunday in France, wraps up tomorrow. Some 22,652 total entries were submitted, with 4,498 outdoor entries, making it the second-largest category behind press. Dozens of bronze, silver and gold prizes were awarded, though only one grand prix winner is recognized in each category.
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