Comments

I don't feel that it is too graphic. There is not a lot of gore and the injuries to the girl who died were implied, not displayed.

Does it do any good? I'm not sure. I first heard of this issue when Princess Diane was heavily involved. I first thought it was a ludicrous cause. As I've heard more my mind has changed. It wasn't an issue of whether or not it happened here, it was an issue of not understanding how it happened anywhere.

In my opinion, this ad doesn't disspell the misunderstanding that the cause is ludicrous. Actually, it may add to that perception. It seems so far-fetched (correct me if I'm wrong) that something like this would happen on a soccer field where people have likely been trapsing over without incident for a while.

They may be addressing the wrong issue (no first-hand experiences in US) vs. the issue I think is at hand (lack of understanding effects worldwide). It does also smack of Hollywood a bit. It seems too-obviously manipulative (let's try to impact soccer moms).

Posted by Dustin at April 12, 2005 12:58 PM

James: I remember we had this discussion via email.

"I remember at a recent meeting, a senior diplomat we were meeting with said that the U.N. Personnel Landmine Treaty would not have happened if it weren't for Internet and email. He talked about how the Net opened many of these previously closed treaty making processes to NGOs and individuals. It appears that the US is doing what it can to marginalize these ultilateral processes. This also reminds me of how important video is. You can say landmine all you want but a video has impact beyond words. I really think that video blogging will evolve into an important part of our dialog. I wish more news agencies would provide us with material to use to create citizen video commentary. Maybe CNN can ban it, but we can still distribute it on the Internet" - Anon :)-

Video is important-- be it scripted (ad) or just plain reality like you said "In my opinion, you do not need a fancy commercial to shock or
get the point across. Just show the reality"

But Reality bites !!

The question should be, why are the MSM banning a sanctioned UN Ad ??

yes, this is an old topic. Thanks for bringing it up again !!

Posted by /pd at April 12, 2005 1:42 PM

I think you are using this space as a thinly veiled attempt to put forth your political (anti-landmine) agenda. How cynical you must be.

Posted by Mike at April 12, 2005 1:54 PM

Not at all Mike... my issue is not anti-landmine, but rather pro-survivor of their (and survivors of other explosive remnants of war) accidents... .and I do not veil that at all, quite the contrary.

I have no political agenda, frankly. There are legitimate issues on each side of the landmine debate, and I have chosen not to get involved in that debate for a number of reasons:

1) I am more concerned about the immediate human impact and if I can be of assistance somehow.

2) There are plenty of people more intelligent than I that can carry the political football on this one. Becoming political either way would hurt my organization's humanitarian goals.

3) My organization deals primarily with survivors of accidents involving BOMBS not landmines. I would have a hard time advocating for a ban on bombs.

I am more interested here to hear if people find this type of ad effective.

Posted by James at April 12, 2005 2:36 PM

Dustin-

I agree... it does seem too manipulative for people to trust the message...

Just give people the truth without the dramatics and special effects and I think the message will be heard and received in a more trusted light.

Posted by James at April 12, 2005 2:45 PM

As human beings, we care about those issues that impact us most directly. While I watched a lot of CNN video of the tsunami disaster, it did not really resonate with me on an emotional level because I was not connected to any of the victims. Nor did I have any first-hand knowledge of the places that were struck by the killer waves. In contrast, I was deeply affected when a friend was struck and killed by an automobile last December. This event had more emotional impact than the loss of hundreds of thousands of people in a major disaster.

The strategy to personalize a message in a public service advertising campaign is a good one. If you can make an emotional connection with your audience, you can be successful in gaining support or changing behavior.

I do not think this ad is well executed because the scenario is so improbable that it fails to connect (at least with me). The production value suggests a made-for-television scene rather than a realistic event that happens to people somewhere in the world. In the end, it fails to elicit a genuine emotional response.

I would produce this very differently. I'd show an actual victim, a young girl with missing limbs, contrasting her with a typical, healthy American child and ask, "What if she were your daughter? Would you take action against land mines?"

Posted by Kurt at April 12, 2005 4:42 PM

My point exactly, Kurt... but articulated much more clearly.

Posted by James at April 12, 2005 8:28 PM

If we can see so many movies about destruction, if we can see war in realtime images and not feel ashamed why shouldn´t we see the face of suffering, of mutilation, of broken lifes?

Keep on working like now, James.

Posted by felix gerena at April 13, 2005 7:47 AM

KURT said:
I would produce this very differently. I'd show an actual victim, a young girl with missing limbs, contrasting her with a typical, healthy American child and ask, "What if she were your daughter? Would you take action against land mines?"
*

I would agree if the ad was targeted at a mass audience. My reading of this ad is that it's aimed square at a specific segment, which I'll describe here as "soccer moms" and "suburban dads".

My reading of the scene is they are trying to get a significant segment of the population to care about an issue the advertiser feels the segment should care about but doesn't.

Generally, suburbanites are driven by issues of safety and fear and separation-from-danger. By breaking the idyllic illusion, the advertiser, I think, is aiming to inject an everyday fear felt by people in many countries. BTW, a lot of Bosnian kids were blown up on soccer fields that were mined by Croatian militias; in that sense, it's a very realistic ad -- though shifted in context.

As a rule, this segment tries to escape ugliness, phsyically and emotionally. By bringing landmines into their idyllic context, the advertiser is trying to reach these segments on a primal/fear level that will generate enough empathy in them for them to care and support the cause. This was the same group that blossomed into the very intense but short-lived "Nuclear Freeze" movement in the early 1980s.

That's my reading of it, anyway.

Posted by jeff angus at April 13, 2005 12:37 PM

About your aside. The problems you mention that we stand for in other places, but not here, are often the result of local customs and politics. There was an article in the NY times yesterday about the rivaly between Drs Salk and Sabin. In most of the world polio has been eliminated, but there is a new outbreak and that is the result of local or religious customs against vaccinations. The NGOs would give them if they could, but ...

Posted by mike cipolla at April 13, 2005 1:13 PM

Jeff,

I totally get what they're trying to do, but feel it is WAY too obvious. People don't like to know their being manipulated. Of course we're being manipulated, it's an ad, but we don't want to be aware of that as we watch.

Thanks for the info on the Bosnian soccer fields. Hard to believe that would happen. It sickens me. Without that knowledge, this seems far-fetched even in another country. Maybe the ad would have more impact if that actual incident was mentioned at the end.

Posted by Dustin at April 13, 2005 3:04 PM

DUSTIN SAID
Maybe the ad would have more impact if that actual incident was mentioned at the end.
-
Agree totally with you.

Maybe, though, they thought it might blunt the pure-emotion play they had going. You and I both view this ad through our intellects and, to me anyway, it DOES feel two-dimensional & manipulative.

I suspect neither of us, though are part of the demographic group this aimed to nail. And I suspect that group is more moved by a pure-emotion play than the rest of the population.

Remember how effective the 1988 Willie Horton ad was? Big black jailbird male who likes to rape white women...the facts didn't support the ad even remotely and the first time I saw it I thought it was a Second City TV parody. But it was beautifully-crafted to tap into primal suburbanite fears, and worked mucho magic on the voting bloc at which it was aimed.

That's effective advertising, over the top to viewers like us or not. I suspect this one would do the job too, which is why there's a controversy about it -- that is, the pro-land mine side is concerned it might be effective on the voting bloc at which it is aimed.

And a last note on Bosnia. You may already know there are roughly 10,000 worldwide civilian land-mine casualties a year, & a significant percentage are children. Many are blown up by anti-personnel mines that are left over from conflicts that ended decades ago (thousands of the 100,000+ land mines that our own mercenaries planted in Nicaragua during our war against their government have not been removed -- it costs about 70x as much to remove a minefield as to seed it, so the economics work against clean-up).
It's not just Bosnia, though I agree with you that that is a particularly ugly application.

Posted by jeff angus at April 14, 2005 1:12 PM

Mike Cippola-

Thanks for your feedback... and as a longtime NGO program director, I have run into the same problems you mention in implementation due to red-tape, cultural barriers, etc... so your point is a good one.....

...but really that is only one minor piece of the problem... apathy... the lack of caring... is a much deeper, and more dificult, barrier to address.

Posted by James at April 14, 2005 3:07 PM

Great response Jeff. Very persuasive and well thought out. I can't argue with that.

Dustin

Posted by Dustin at April 14, 2005 4:45 PM

No, the ad is not effective, because:

1. It is condescending to the audience. You will have a hard time getting soccer moms and dads to have warm fuzzies for land-mine ridden countries when the makers of the ad believe that the time, energy and money spent on such "trivial" things when it could be spent on "lofty" things like land-mines.
2. While the content may not be too graphic for adults, responsible parents will switch the commercial because they don't want their children to see it. Young children won't get the symbolism--they will believe it is real. That will piss parents off.
3. Americans, for all their fat and lazy faults, are generous. This video implies that they are fat, lazy and selfish pigs to boot. That is not true. Most people, if they understand clearly the need, will move to ameliorate it. This ad implies that because it is not happening here, we don't care.
4. An ad doesn't work when it insults the buyer's intelligence. The land-mine issue is not simple. If it were it would be solved. The ad gives no solutions. While an average person may not have a nuanced position on geopolitics, they do understand plans of action where a real need is made known. (Tsunami anyone?)
5. Let's see: we have organ donation, Tsunami donation, Living Wills (Terri Schiavo), obesity awareness, anti-smoking ads, child molesters out and killing and burying kids alive, 9-11, Afganistan, Iraq, Social Security reform, taxes, taxes and more taxes (small business people who have time to take their kiddos to soccer, afterall), hurricanes, border security, and we are being asked to do what exactly about land mines?

The ad sucks. On many levels.
Melissa

Posted by Melissa at April 18, 2005 10:17 PM