Wildlife Group Condemns a 9/11-Tsunami Ad

An ad proposed by a Brazilian advertising agency, which shows dozens of planes heading for Lower Manhattan, was rejected by the World Wildlife Fund. An ad proposed by a Brazilian advertising agency, which shows dozens of planes heading for Lower Manhattan, was rejected by the World Wildlife Fund.

The World Wildlife Fund on Tuesday condemned an unauthorized advertisement that depicted dozens of planes heading into Lower Manhattan, with a tag line reading, “The Tsunami Killed 100 Times More People Than 9/11.”

The ad had been pitched to the Brazilian branch of the World Wildlife Fund by an advertising agency and rejected, said Steve Ertel, a spokesman for the group. “It was a concept to our office in Brazil and it was rejected. From that point, we have not been able to get a hold of the agency to find out how it got out.”

A statement released by the group on Tuesday afternoon said:

The concept was summarily rejected by W.W.F. and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from Web sites where it is being currently featured.

Beneath the text comparing 9/11 with the tsunami, the ad reads: “The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.” The text stands next to the group’s familiar black and white giant panda logo.

Mr. Ertel said the World Wildlife Fund had never seen the ad before Tuesday, when his phone started ringing and people began forwarding various blog posts about the ad. It was a scramble to figure out where the ad had come from, he said.

“There were a number of calls to a number of people,” he said.

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This advert is appalling. How can you compare something that happens in nature to the mass murder of innocent people by terrorists. This is a slur on the memory of all the people lost on that terrible day.
It’s beneath contemptibility someone would even think of using this tragedy for their own gains. I am glad it was stopped.

This is bad.

Unfortunately, scam (or fake) ads are all too prevalent in the award show schemes for the advertising industry.

More awards usually mean higher level, better paying jobs for the winners. Not all ad makers condone this practice and are against it outright, but the call has fallen on deaf ears…mainly because award shows earn very high fees for every entry. This has to stop. Entries MUST be fully verified, and the makers should be penalized if caught.

There needs to be a real, industry-wide effort to stop this ongoing practice…as it damages brands, the industry, the award show’s reputations, and creates a PR nightmare for agencies.

Not to mention that is outright cheating against one’s peers to get ahead.

There are no words to describe how awful this idea was. I am glad someone had the sense to stop its use. The person that thought this up should have to watch videos of that horrible day over and over again, as apparently he/she has forgotten that day completely. How insensitive and cruel can someone be?

This looks to me like someone (or group of people) were purposely trying to degrade the World Wildlife Fund and cause them serious trouble. It’s unheard of that an ad agency would release advertising without consent or sign-off by the client. Merely pulling the ad is not enough — the W W F needs to sue and put this agency out of business for good.

The World Wildlife Fund supports animals, so why have a tag line about how many *people* were killed? Not only is this ad in poor taste, but it is also poorly conceived.

Of course, this gives the World Wildlife Fund and its goals more free publicity than they could ever have afforded to pay for. But this can’t have been intended. Right?

Ronald Higginbotham September 1, 2009 · 7:37 pm

Since a Brazilian ad agency came up with this idea (which was rejected by the WWF), the ad is more a reflection of how the US is viewed in South America rather than how the WWF values human life.

The tsunami was caused by an earthquake, which humans have no control over or ability cause, so using that as an example on why humans need to respect mother nature is problematic. But I think the ad is totally appropriate. People in this country freaked out over 9/11 and screamed for blood, and yet very few voices can be heard about doing anything to fight global warming. Mother Nature’s wrath is far more brutal than any terrorist attack, ever.

Tacky tacky WWF. No more money from me.

Why would someone make this to begin with?? I don’t understand. Makes me very sad.

Listen lady… You can’t be in the right state of mind to think that it was ok for people to make this ad…. Mother natures wrath has nothing to do with natural things that happen on the planet earth … What’s sad is that people can knowingly inflict pain and harm on other people ..

I hope that the people who came up with the idea for this ad have a sudden attack of conscience (hardly likely), and apologize to everyone who lost a loved one on September 11th.

This ad was secretly promoted to undercut the WWF and their new campaign. It is sickening, and is an attack on the WWF.

“The ad had been pitched to the Brazilian branch of the World Wildlife Fund by an advertising agency and rejected”

I looked, and there’s no company called “an advertising agency” in Brazil. Doesn’t the New York Times do any fact checking?

WHO CREATED THE AD?

There is just no way any tsunami killed 100 times the people as 9/11. These numbers were obviously inflated. How many children die each day around the world due to hunger? Now, are people going to make an ad about that, implying that we should be equally concerned about them as the people in the Twin Towers??? What is this world coming to?

Well, I don’t know where to begin. It’s horrible and stupid and also shows how things are lost in translation between cultures and countries. The Japanese still think minstrel depictions of blacks is ok. I guess the Brazilians think 9/11 was no big deal! We should vote with our money.

I disagree, that “The Tsunami” killed 100 times more people than 9-11, which would be around 300, 000.
Post 9-11 deaths due to illness contracted at ground zero, over a million civilian casualties in Iraq, the loss of thousands of American and British soldiers and those from other allied countries, and thousands of casualities of civilians and soldiers in Afghanistan, place the death toll well beyond that number.
And “respecting” nature doesn’t necessarily save you from its wrath. And the advice to “preserve it” actually implies man’s dominion over Nature, which is contradictory.

I agree with Andrew. 9/11 was a horrible day and act BUT it is not the only thing that has happened in the last 8 years. Let’s stop canonizing the event and look at the totality of our earth’s problems; something the ad agency was probably getting at. There are bombings and acts of terror in other countries but they somehow are belittled when compared to the ‘ultimate act of terror’ that was 9/11. This is due to the location of where it happened and NOT that it happened at all…(lower Manhattan-New York City-center of financial America & the World). Let’s move on and work toward what we can ALL do for the Earth’s responsibility & world peace!

This ad-noted that the WWF rejects it-is really infuriating.

Why?

Because I love The United States of America. We may not be perfect, but we’re doing life the best way we know-by giving people the freedom to make good choices, and poor ones.

When was the last time you saw a domestic company market the Holocaust, the Darfur Genocide, or the 2005 London Bombings? Reputation is still important, you know.

The person that allowed that to get out needs to learn something that will change their life: compassion.

Anyone else having tasteless 9/11 joke deja vu all over again?

As art this would have been banned and its creator villified the world over.
By as an ad it lends invaluable insight: Tsunami’s are more deadly than al Qaeda, so you ought to be just as afraid of Mother Nature, or of yourself, for contributing to climate change, as you are of them. The author of “The planet is brutally powerful” is somehow uniquely immune to the danger.
I suspected all along the war on terror was a mistaken priority. Time to train the sights of its ubiquitous apparatus on the real enemy – everything else.

Come on NYT, do your job and report: WHO created the ad?

People, you have no idea how things work here in Brazil. Some agencies have no moral boundaries when it comes to win stupid advertising awards. DDB Brazil is known for being one of the most ambitious (in a bad way) agencies in the country, if not the most. I am sure WWF would never approve of something like this, as much as I am sure DDB would go ahead with something this bad without their approval just because they thought it could win something.

This is a great shame for all Brazilian advertisers, like myself.

The ad was created by DM9DDB (dm9ddb.com.br)