Advertising for a purpose

Simon White and Humberto Polar Mayo from Draftfcb Peru focused their presentation at Eurobest 2013 on goodvertising.

Goodvertising it’s about brands that are choosing to play a role in people’s lives and are driven by the win-win-win principle, which means that benefits are in the same time for clients, brands and communities.

The two speakers started their speech by reminding the audience about the true power of advertising, which they said, “it can shake the society” and contradicted three main arguments on which advertising hides, which are: “advertising is about the promotion of choice”, “advertising merely redistributes wealth” and “advertising reflects a society’s values”. It all depends on the purpose of the brands. If a brand’s purpose is only to make profit, regardless the effects on clients or communities, then of course, those three arguments aren’t sustaining themselves anymore. Instead of reflecting values, advertising can manipulate them.

So, after Simon and Humberto reiterated the power of advertising, they spoke about how brands can use this power for good purposes.

They’ve quoted Jim Stengel, who said: “Maximum growth and high ideals are not incompatible. They are inseparable.” and shared their opinion that “if you look at any great campaign and behind it you will see a clear intent, a resolve, a purpose. It could be as simple as to raise a smile or as complex as stopping child abuse, but it is there, at its very core.”. Also, they’ve reminded that “out of 17 categories at Cannes Lions 2013, 12 Grand Prix winners were executions with a societal cause underpinning it.”

In order to prove their belief, that when agencies do more and give more, becoming more humanistic, campaigns effectiveness improves, the two speakers came with four powerful study-cases, from four different continents. All of these campaigns were designed to sell a product, but also to give back to the community. These ideas that pushed the limits of creativity, tested the nerve of clients and challenged established ideas of what is possible.