Cannes spotlight: BBDO Pakistan, not a bug splat
Here’s a shortlisted campaign that has eluded Campaign Brief Asia previously. Not many campaigns get noticed out of Pakistan, however BBDO Pakistan has come up with a good one.
“Not a Bug Splat” for Reprieve/Foundation for Fundamental Rights has today scored three shortlists in Cannes across the Promo + Activation and Direct categories. Campaign Brief Asia believes this is Pakistan’s first shortlists at Cannes (but don’t hold me to that) and should the campaign score a Lion it will certainly be a great milestone for the country.
In military slang, Predator drone operators often refer to kills as ‘bug splats’, since viewing the body through a grainy video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed.
To challenge this insensitivity as well as raise awareness of civilian casualties, an artist collective installed a massive portrait facing up in the heavily bombed Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, where drone attacks regularly occur. Now, when viewed by a drone camera, what an operator sees on his screen is not an anonymous dot on the landscape, but an innocent child victim’s face.
5 Comments
Shocking….trading on such real life horror to win an award.
Should boycott this agency for being so crass.
This is fantastic work; well done. I don’t understand the previous comment: the work is raising awareness of a tragedy that occurs frequently. What’s shocking is that people aren’t aware of it.
Amazing idea!
Extremely touching and delivers the right emotional reaction – the US needs to seriously stop those drone strikes!
Agreed. This is fantastic work that highlights an emotional issue. One that needs all the publicity it can get.
A lot of obvious shills on this thread talking about awareness
Wikileaks youtube video “collateral damage” has 15 million + views….plus the subject of drones has not gone unnoticed.
The only people who will see these images if they’re real and not photoshopped, are drone operators in Texas….and maybe some judges at award shows.
Interesting to see that the organisation which supposedly commissioned/supported this work does not mention it anywhere on their website either.
You cant stop atrocities like drone strikes on civilians with ads….it takes a lot more.
But to try to win an award off someone else’s suffering (when its 100% guaranteed that your ad will achieve zero results) is just plain shameful.