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Amnesty unveils new TV ads
Claire Cozens
Wednesday February 5, 2003
Amnesty International is launching its first TV advertising campaign for almost a decade after a controversial ban that prevented the pressure group promoting itself on television was lifted.
The organisation hopes to recruit 1,400 regular supporters with the campaign, which goes on air next Monday and shows prisoners freed following Amnesty campaigns being reunited with their families.
Actor Jeremy Irons narrates the voiceover for the ad, which uses the U2 song One on the soundtrack. Both Irons and U2 waived their fees for the campaign.
"The fact that the regulators have approved this ad for broadcast could have major implications for organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, who were also banned from advertising in the 1990s," said Joel Voysey, the head of supporter recruitment at Amnesty International.
The human rights group was forced to abandon advertising after broadcasting regulators ruled its opposition to human rights violations made it a political organisation, disqualifying it from TV or radio advertising.
Amnesty challenged the ruling and three years ago it finally won a seven-year court battle to be allowed to advertise when the European court of human rights ruled the government ban on political advertising should not apply to the human rights charity.
A Friends of the Earth campaign was pulled in 1995, and in 1997 the independent television commission ordered Christian Aid to pull a television advert calling for an end to Third World debt because the organisation's "objects are... of a political nature".
Paul Kitcatt, the creative director of Amnesty's ad agency Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw, said the new ad was "nothing like what you'd expect".
"We've found a way to show the human value of Amnesty International's work that anyone who's loved someone will be moved by," he added.
The campaign represents a change in strategy for Amnesty International, promoting the idea that "Amnesty's work reunites people with their families".
The ad contains real-life footage of Ishmael Samba and his son Guillermo, two former Cuban prisoners of conscience, who are shown meeting up in their new home country, Canada, for the first time after years in jail.
It also shows Lionel, a Nicaraguan street child thrown into an adult jail without charge, being reunited with his sister. Both have since been released following campaigns by Amnesty members.
The campaign launches on Monday on satellite and cable television and may also be used in other countries. Mediavest is the handling the media buying.
Amnesty unveils new TV ads
Claire Cozens
Wednesday February 5, 2003
Amnesty International is launching its first TV advertising campaign for almost a decade after a controversial ban that prevented the pressure group promoting itself on television was lifted.
The organisation hopes to recruit 1,400 regular supporters with the campaign, which goes on air next Monday and shows prisoners freed following Amnesty campaigns being reunited with their families.
Actor Jeremy Irons narrates the voiceover for the ad, which uses the U2 song One on the soundtrack. Both Irons and U2 waived their fees for the campaign.
"The fact that the regulators have approved this ad for broadcast could have major implications for organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, who were also banned from advertising in the 1990s," said Joel Voysey, the head of supporter recruitment at Amnesty International.
The human rights group was forced to abandon advertising after broadcasting regulators ruled its opposition to human rights violations made it a political organisation, disqualifying it from TV or radio advertising.
Amnesty challenged the ruling and three years ago it finally won a seven-year court battle to be allowed to advertise when the European court of human rights ruled the government ban on political advertising should not apply to the human rights charity.
A Friends of the Earth campaign was pulled in 1995, and in 1997 the independent television commission ordered Christian Aid to pull a television advert calling for an end to Third World debt because the organisation's "objects are... of a political nature".
Paul Kitcatt, the creative director of Amnesty's ad agency Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw, said the new ad was "nothing like what you'd expect".
"We've found a way to show the human value of Amnesty International's work that anyone who's loved someone will be moved by," he added.
The campaign represents a change in strategy for Amnesty International, promoting the idea that "Amnesty's work reunites people with their families".
The ad contains real-life footage of Ishmael Samba and his son Guillermo, two former Cuban prisoners of conscience, who are shown meeting up in their new home country, Canada, for the first time after years in jail.
It also shows Lionel, a Nicaraguan street child thrown into an adult jail without charge, being reunited with his sister. Both have since been released following campaigns by Amnesty members.
The campaign launches on Monday on satellite and cable television and may also be used in other countries. Mediavest is the handling the media buying.
