Cordaid/Saatchi Ad Campaign

Attention, open in a new window.

Usually, social ads can be a wide open trap for creative. This one is particularly well done & represent a perfect example of a relevant use of the cross-cultural approach on many levels.

The purpose of social ads is to reach a proper level of guilt or making you feel angry enough to make you act. In this ad, reaching to our guilty feeling is well done because it also make us smile at our selves and our vain habits... In a simple gesture this ad engage us to be the anthropologist of our selves. It is also an interesting critic of advertising and the standard fashion language. The ads are so well made, it is an instant impact and a real head turner.

One thing, I think should have been done is to truly advertise the product brand presented on the ad and put it on sell on the Cordaid site with all profit going toward the cause of helping these people get access to water & solar power. Showing how the shooting took place & profiling each of these models would have been even more interesting.

www.cordaid.nl

Comments (2)

Not sure I love it. It's eye-catching, for certain, but ... there just seems to be something a bit off about the juxtaposition of the Masai (?) man and the luxury (well, except the beer, which we can classify as a necessity) goods. I can't put my finger on what bothers me, though ...

Masai(?) women should have pause for the bag and the glasses... but it also could have looked too much "ethnic fashion" set if they had done so... Something already done in fashion mag. There is a thin balance they had to find to project awkwardness.
As about beer, being a "necessity item"... there is days I would agree with that statement... but in the desert... water will do.

Greg