Inventing ways to advertise products is the hardest job in the world. And products are things people want. Imagine, then, how hard it must be to think of how to advertise things people don’t care about at all, like environmental awareness and mass death.

A few days or weeks ago, I don’t know exactly when because what am I, the news, this company DDB Brazil released a spec ad for the World Wildlife Fund featuring a bunch of planes aimed at the twin towers. It reads, “The Tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11.” First of all, the tsunami? Who is the tsunami, Madonna? Second of all, remember when no one knew what DDB Brazil was?
Anyway, 9/11 imagery is totally hot right now, so this is clearly a right place/right time kind of thing. But what of those ad agencies without this kind of luck? Luckily for them, I have a degree* in coming up with ideas for advertising companies working with environmental awareness places.

Turn Off the Lights When You Leave the Room
A house is shown. Every room is empty and illuminated with a glowy, yellow light. A family is gathered in the den playing either Scrabble or Monopoly, whichever reads better.  Leering into their window is a man in a black and white striped shirt with a mask on his face, obscuring his skin color so nobody gets mad. He is carrying a large knife in one hand and a gun in the other. In the top right is the text, “When you carelessly leave your lights on, you are killing our world. It is only a matter of time…” And then it just ends, but instead of an ellipsis, it is three drops of blood.

Don’t Waste Paper
A bunch of people in concentration camp uniforms stand in the forest with their arms in the air, acting as trees. A sun looms overhead with the face of Hitler, or maybe just the mustache. In the top right is the text, “The number of pieces of paper wasted every day is greater than the number of people killed during the Holocaust.” In smaller text below that, “Every time you waste paper, you’re killing a Jew.”

Don’t Litter
This one is fairly simple. It’s a post-Katrina New Orleans, made apparent by lots of water, Marti Gras beads, and one or two saxophones. A man stands with his hand in the garbage-tossing position while a can of soda hangs in mid air. It is obvious he has just littered. In the top right is the text, “New Orleans loved littering.”

Buy Local and Use a Cloth Bag
A mother stands in her kitchen surrounded by grocery bags from a large chain of grocery stores. Everything is double-bagged — both paper and plastic. She hates when the plastic bags tear. Everything falls out and it’s always the bag with the little things — never the bag with the boxes of cereal that would probably stay in the bag, even if it did tear. The scene seems normal, but upon closer inspection you notice that all of the bags are filled with rotting body parts. And behind the mother is a mirror. Much like that scene in The Shining — you know the one, in the bathroom? — you notice that the backside of the mother is also rotting, her disgusting skin falling off of her disgusting bones. In the top right, “Buy local. Use a cloth bag.” 

Ride a Bike
John F. Kennedy has just been shot. In the top right, “Maybe you should try riding a bike next time.”

 

*No I don’t.

 
Kelly Conaboy Saves the World appears every Thursday.

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