WWF ads can sometimes be a little obscure, sometimes weird, sometimes boring, sometimes neither here nor there. There are definitely some >good ones, though, and this is one of them. Very simple, straight to the point, and also funny while not being funny (I am sure there is a word I am looking for here).

To see an ambulance pulled over with one paramedic on the phone, one smoking a fag, and the other casually taking a leak is not an image we are accustomed to seeing. So, it is funny.

But then you see the rolled car in the background, and someone struggling to escape before the vehicle is engulfed in flames. Not quite so funny.

Funnily enough, I have actually been in a position similar to this. A family member was in a car accident that involved power lines, so they were stuck injured in their car until the power company could come and disconnect the lines. Unfortunately, because there had been a severe storm, said electrician took almost two hours, and for this entire time a whole bunch of police, paramedics and SES workers stood about ten metres from the car with nothing to do but wait. Really, if they had gone to hang a piss in the field or call their wife, it would have made no difference. Funny now. Although it wasn’t at the time.

Altogether I find the awkward combination of comical paramedics and devastating car-accident in this ad quite effective in getting a simple message across. No flowery language and la-di-da rhetoric about saving the earth. Just a basic and confronting image with simple copy that you can’t really argue with.

Client: WWF
Agency: Ogilvy France
Creative Director: Nick Hine
Art Director: Eve Roussou / Daniela Nedelschi
Copywriter: Nick Hine / Chris Garbutt
Photographer: Carioca
Country: France

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