American blogs and media are abuzz with a controversial environment advertisement campaign depicting planes crashing into New York’s Twin Towers and the WWF logo. The advertisements and video compares and contrasts the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami with the New York terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and suggests the earth is a far more powerful and deadly entity than terrorists and should therefore command our respect.
The Brazilian advertising agency DDB reportedly made the campaign as part of a pitch to WWF that was quickly rejected. WWF is making every effort to distance itself from the controversial advertisement.
The WWF issued the following statement to the media:
WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication. It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency seeking our business in Brazil.
The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from websites where it is being currently featured.
We strongly condemn the messages and the images portrayed in this ad. On behalf of WWF around the world, we can promise you this ad does not in any way reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people of our organization.
Americans continue to consider the September 11, 2001 attacks as sacrosanct.
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