Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Blowing Up Children for an Environmental Ad Campaign?
This ad campaign was put on by 1010global.org in the hopes to make an imprint on people on the importance of being more ecologically friendly and cutting their CO2 emissions by 10%. Well they sure have made an impact, for better or for worse.
I am all for being eco-friendly, just not when it involves an ad campaign that utilizes blowing up children to get the main point across. The ad was initially intended to be a satirical and humorous, but soon proved otherwise when right-wing news sources viewed the advertisement and not to be ironic, blew the story up into a huge fiasco.
I worry this type of campaign gives anti-environmentalists the exact evidence and incentive they are looking for to deem environmentalists as crazy coo coos who are willing to choose saving a tree over a child. The Gadsen Post's response to RedState's article on the subject (both conservative) said: "This is the future that these eco-terrorists have planned for us if we don't agree to voluntarily reduce our CO2 footprints."
1010global.org in my opinion and I think most people agree definitely went in the wrong direction. Environmentalist or not, blowing up people to try to make them live a greener lifestyle is just not an effective campaign strategy. Appropriate or not, this ad has only led to adverse effects, although to be fair their campaign is now in the national spotlight and getting much exposure, just maybe not the way they want to be seen. What was your reaction to this ad?
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5 comments:
I also agree that blowing up kids...well people in general is not going to prove thier point and it sure won't make people want to listen to what they are saying because it does give them the crazy impression!
I would also say the campaign misses the point. Blowing up children probably serves more as a distraction from the actual message than a way of helping, and I find the concept to be, overall, rather silly. Perhaps stricter methods of defining the guidelines of the word "satire" are in order...
Personally, I think blowing up children and people is simply inhumane. I found it quite ironic how the commercial says there's no pressure to cut down on carbon emissions. However, in spite of all the humans blowing up and what not, I think this commercial does help get the point across. Although it was very direct and grotesque, the commercial was basically saying if you don't cut down on your carbon emissions and start trying to save the Earth, we will deserve to die. But if you think about it, by not cutting down on carbon emissions, we are fueling our own demise in a way. Increased amounts of CO2 can warm up the Earth, melt polar ice caps, and cause flooding to the places that humans live on. I think the cause is very noble, but it may cause a lot of controversy because of the people blowing up. However, it does get the point across and the shock we get from the commercial does leave an imprint within us after we finish watching the commercial. As a result, we will be more inclined to cutting down our carbon emissions. The commercial is good in my opinion, but it went a bit too far with the exploding humans.
My initial response after seeing this video was "NICE!" I know it is unethical to blow up kids for a TV ad campaign, but I see how environmentalists thought they could gain popularity by making this ad. I think it was so that they could attract attention, but it it went the wrong way for them. A person could see environmentalists as crazy people who would do anything to save the Earth. I think the message in blowing people up was to show that there are lot of places who are going to take a strong incentive to cut their C02 emissions by 10% and that everyone should follow.
How is this supposed to be satirical and humorous? Blowing people up seems to have more of a shocking reaction than a humorous one. Personally I stopped watching after the first two sections, as I was disgusted by what seems to be a (most likely unintended) message that those who are not eco-friendly deserve death. People really are more likely to dismiss a campaign when it includes stuff like this.
I'm guessing that the intended message was that we will die if we don't take care of the environment, but it is really hard to see their actual message. I don't doubt that most of you guys had to squint to try to understand this campaign.
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