The UN News Centre reports that the United Nations recently awarded several advertising agencies for developing campaigns that raised awareness of various humanitarian and development issues, such as the plight of slum dwellers and child abuse.
This year’s winners were: Leo Burnett Publicidade Ltda (Brazil) for “Favela”, a print advertisement to raise awareness about poverty; Leo Burnett Paris (France) for a campaign for “Enfance et Partage,” a non-governmental organization (NGO) working to prevent child abuse and DDB Jakarta (Indonesia) for “Supermarket Baby,” a television campaign about the trafficking of infants for adoption.
Don’t know about the others, but Leo Burnett is also the agency that handles the advertising for a number of other less than stellar corporate citizen’s including Philip Morris, McDonalds and Walt Disney. This begs the question if a few public service advertisements make up for shilling for mega-corporations that are poisoning our lungs, making us obese and homogenizing our culture? Or is this just more blue-washing?