|
 The International Advertising Association’s UAE chapter has signed up to the organisation’s global push to call for action on climate change, and is asking local media for pro-bono space.
The IAA globally is promoting its “Hopenhagen” campaign, which aims to prod the United Nations into definitive action on all that pesky warming stuff that scientists keep harping on about. Through the website hopenhagen.org
the IAA aims to pull in millions of signatures to its petition before the UN meets in December in Copenhagen (hence, “Hopenhagen”, geddit?).
“There’s no doubt in our mind that our past indifference and ignorance, and at best, the inactivity we’ve seen from people, is no longer acceptable. We have a belief at the IAA that it’s really critical that we change some of this ignorance and indifference we’ve seen in the market across the world,” said Hermann Behrens, CEO of The Brand Union Dubai, at a press conference today.
“We’re looking for pro-bono support from media – the media will be make-or-break. We have to have enough impact behind this campaign to generate the awareness and the call to action. People understand the importance of this issue; our job as communications professionals is to generate the call-to-action,” he added.
The IAA will be talking various media outlets from tomorrow onwards about carrying the Hopenhagen creative, originally put together by Ogilvy, and tweaked for regional use, including Arabisation. The organisation is also hoping to get UAE government organisations such as the National Media Council on board, which would give a boost when it comes to getting media to run the ads.
Dr Lance de Massi, president of the IAA, said that to his knowledge the UAE chapter was the only regional IAA outfit to promote the Hopenhagen campaign thus far.
UPDATE: As you'll see from the comments at the bottom of this story, Louai Alasfahani of the IAA in Kuwait is extremely happy to put the record straight and record that his chapter, along with Kuwait's media, are firmly behind Hopenhagen. Good for them.
With 48 days to go until the Copenhagen meeting starts, the timing is deliberately tight – apparently the IAA wanted to go for intensity rather than duration.
Any media outlets interested in running some of the Hopenhagen work can give the IAA a call.
|
News 
