Offender: World Wildlife Foundation Brazil
Campaign: "Tsunami" video
The sin
In an attempt to relate the scale of the tragic tsunami that killed 280,000 people in Southeast Asia in 2005, DDB Brazil and the World Wildlife Foundation Brazil tried to compare it to a tragedy that nearly everyone understood. Unfortunately, the example the two companies chose was the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Using computer animation, the agency recreated the image of two airplanes hitting the World Trade Center on New York City. The ad then shows dozens of airplanes swooping toward New York, intending to illustrate that the tsunami caused 100 times as many deaths. A print version simply showed the planes descending upon lower Manhattan.
The ad was intended to relay a message of planet conservation and show how global warming could potentially amplify the devastating effects of tsunamis in the future.
The objectors
It's difficult to find anyone who seemed to think this ad was a good idea, and it certainly didn't help that bloggers, industry press, and the mainstream media all caught wind of it mere weeks before the anniversary of Sept. 11. Barbara Lippert of Adweek described the piece as "an ugly and dumb piece of creative, scoring high on the 'gratuitous use of tragedy to make a nonsensical argument' meter."
The aftermath
Needless to say, both the agency and its client took a beating in the media, with Keith Olbermann declaring DDB Brazil the "worst person in the world" on his talk show. But things only got uglier as this one bad ad led to loads of finger pointing and an interesting study in agency-client politics.
WWF's U.S.-based executive team quickly condemned the ad and vowed to have all traces of it removed. WWF Brazil's initial apology stated that no one within the organization ever signed off on the ad, but then things got even messier.
DDB came forth and said the creative team responsible was no longer with the agency, but the ad had been approved by someone at WWF's Brazilian office, and the print version had run, just once, in a small Brazilian newspaper. Shockingly, the agency had even gone so far as to enter it into competitions, including Cannes, and had somehow managed to win a certificate of merit at the One Show in 2009. (The certificate has since been withdrawn.)
With things spiraling out of control, WWF attempted to finally bury the issue with an official statement and a video message from president Carter Roberts, who disavowed the content of the ad and the message it delivered. "More than anything, we want to convey our great sorrow that these images exist and that they remind those families and everyone affected by 9/11 of a day that remains one of the most tragic in our nation's history."
