Fun week: Stupid nonprofit ad and the transformation of the mud man

Here's a real winner from Oxfam Ireland:

Let's see if we can figure this one out: A man-shaped lump of dry mud is magically transformed into an actual man. While a desiccated landscape becomes a lush savannah. And that is supposed to awaken us to the fact that climate change is a bad thing.

Exactly how?

Forget the fact that the mud-to-man thing makes no sense, but why does it go from bad to good? Doesn't climate change go the other way?

What we have here is another case of message abstraction. Somebody that being unclear, un-literal, and completely conceptual would get the message across better than just saying what's up.

If you want people to face the impacts of climate change, why not show what it actually does? That's pretty horrifying: Babies die. The hopes and dreams of good people get destroyed. Beautiful things turn ugly. But no matter how severe climate change is, it doesn't turn dried mud into people. Or vice-versa.

Looks like ad agency work, though I don't know that for a fact.

If you don't want the tragedy of message abstraction to happen to you, don't let the ad people get to you.

Thanks to Osocio for the tip.

More Stupid nonprofit ads here.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, advertising

Comments

[Brad Bell]

Going from problem to solution leaves one with the feeling that the problem is solved. And all without needing to donate a single penny.

[Ed]

What a beautifully crafted waste of money

[Gabriele Bryant]

Bad to good is good: First the problem, then the solution. I don't find the ad all that bad, except that it doesn't explicitly tell me what the heck to do next.