Zippo: Garbage
Disposable. Just another word for garbage.
While this advertisement is clearly exaggerating the amount of space our obsolete lighters take up in our landfills, it certainly brings home the message. I for one have never even considered a cigarette lighter as such a wasteful item, and I have never thought about the fact that a Zippo lighter might be a better solution.
What we have to remember here is that the people at Zippo Manufacturing aren’t talking about the chemicals that exist in all lighters. They aren’t talking about cigarette butts or fires or toxic smoke. They are talking about disposable cigarette lighters, and that’s it. If we think about it all too much (which is always easy to do when faced with environmental issues in campaigns like these), then the selective advertising is all too obvious, and a little hypocritical.
Having said that, I do like this campaign. It certainly made me think about something that I never had before. After all, we all know about the toxic fumes in gas and petrol, and the impact it has on our natural resources. We all know about cigarette butt litter being a problem for struggling ecosystems, and we all know the devestation that can be caused by a discarded match or butt out of a car window.
This Zippo campaign quite cleverly distracts us from all these issues associated with flames and lighters and drawn our attentions to the less obvious (and maybe less significant?) problem of lighter garbage.
A problem, unlike the others, that Zippo can solve.
Advertiser: Zippo Manufacturing
Advertising Agency: BRUNNER, Pittsburgh, USA
Executive Creative Director: Jay Giesen
Creative Director / Art Director: Dave Vissat
Copywriter: Eric Schlauch
Photographer: Tom Cwenar, Pittsburgh
Retouching: Dwight Pritchett, Pittsburgh
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In the US, the TSA (Transportation Security whatever), the folks who are charged with preventing terrorists from getting on airliners, used to confiscate lighters from passengers before they boarded the plane. Then they realized that all those lighters piled together are an explosive hazard. They are also toxic environmental hazard, and it would cost them big bucks to properly dispose of those lighters.
To solve those problems, you are now allowed to take take your lighter on the plane.
Comment by qka — 11 March, 2009 @ 9:53 am
Oh man, thats a good story qka! Nice. TSA always makes great stupid stories.
Comment by Serge — 11 March, 2009 @ 11:24 am
Take Bic for one example, they proudly state on their website that they have made over 15 billion lighters in their 35 year history. Guess what? That’s 15 billion lighters in our landfills! I bought my first Zippo in 1992 and 17 years later, it’s still with me.
Comment by ryemac3 — 16 August, 2009 @ 3:42 am