Leo Burnett London take the cool out of cocaine with two spots that tie in with the launch of Rachel Seifert’s film ‘Cocaine Unwrapped’
Dartmouth films asked Leo Burnett London to help them take the cool out of cocaine with the UK audience who regard it as a rock and roll drug, snorted by celebrities and supermodels alike. Rachel Seifert’s film ‘Cocaine Unwrapped’ will be rolled out nationally to highlight the constant issues facing South America with this devastating industry that wrecks thousands of innocent lives.
The UK is the biggest consumer of cocaine in Europe. What harm is snorting a line or two when you’re having fun is a typical attitude of some people today.
Leo Burnett want to bring home to them the effect their habit has on people who are caught up in this destructive trade thousands of miles away. They wanted them to imagine how they’d feel if the terrible consequences surrounding the supplying of this drug were closer to home.
Under the theme of ‘You can’t ignore what’s under your nose’ two powerful pieces of film and one piece of sound design were produced to roll out nationally. The final line explains that for every line of cocaine taken in the UK, a life is taken in South America. The film will be part of the pre-roll to Cocaine Unwrapped.
The Machine.
From innocent farmers trying to make a living in Colombia, to the women forced into becoming drug mules to feed their families, to the innocent by-standers caught in the cross-fire of the warring cartels and militia, the machine eats up everyone and everything in it’s path. It’s an uncaring machine without a conscience or ethics. Its mechanical claws grab hold of all these human lives and drops them into its hopper. Everything is then pounded and mixed up with toxic chemicals and ground into white powder. The powder is then packaged into wraps and stamped on its assembly line. A hand grabs a wrap from the machine and it is sold on the streets of the UK to a woman. In a series of quick cuts the woman snorts the output of the machines productivity, her eyes widen she is filled with the tragedy of the human lives lost to supply her habit with a scream. A line appears saying ‘Snort a line of cocaine and you’re fuelling the machine’. A second line appears saying ‘You can’t ignore what’s under your nose’, before we reprise the woman with a dribble of blood coming from her nose which she wipes away in disgust.
Run for your life.
On a suburban British street, a large group of South American people are running with terror in their eyes. Inexplicably, they drop dead one after another on the street. The survivors, seeing their fellow runners dropping like flies, pick up their pace. They turn into a house and in through the door of a party. Another runner goes down in a heap his cap flying off his head as he falls. The people behind step over him and run up the stairs dodging past the fallen. One survivor reaches a bedroom door and pushes it open.. As he falls down dead we see a couple of party goers chopping a line of cocaine and snorting it. A super appears on screen explaining the mysterious deaths: For every line of cocaine snorted in the UK, a life is taken in South America. The end line appears ‘You can’t ignore what’s under your nose’ along with the website of the feature film ‘Cocaine Unwrapped’ that this film accompanies.
12 Comments
What a load of bollocks.
Basically this campaign seems to be an admission that they can’t find a medical reason to demonize cocaine. Obviously talking too much is no longert considerd a threat to society.
Instead they focus on the exploitation of those involved in growing, manufacturing, shipping and selling to us wealthy Westerners.
All of which I’m sure happens. But, logically, you could end this exploitation tomorrow by legalizing the stuff.
These poor bastards are not the victims of the millions who have a jolly good time with coke, but of the hundreds who have banned it, driven up the price, created a criminal chain and all the thing shown so graphically in those spots.
Think how economy would improve if the $300 it costs for a decent night out went to taxes or proper Aussie businesses.
Yeah I dunno. The last thing someone that leases self-esteem for 350 bucks a week is going to care about while they’re giving themselves a slap on the back on a Friday night is two shits about where it came from.
Ahhh, the delicious irony of asking an ad agency to come up with an anti-cocaine campaign.
“For every line of cocaine snorted in the UK and innocent life is lost in South America”
Really? Now that’s a statistic I’d like to see the research for!
I can’t believe this idea ever got up. Such a flawed strategy to try and create empathy amongst a urbanised, individualistic group of people with a population they care nothing about. Would be far better to try and stigmatise the use of the drug bu focussing on the health and social problems it creates. It’s called relevance.
In london it goes for £40 a gram (about $60 AU). So the issue over here is that it’s so cheap that it really is everywhere, unlike Oz where you have to be prepared to drop a lot more for a night out. And all the dealers deliver to your door, driving around the city in BMWs.
But I don’t know what these vids will achieve. Half the problem in London is that it’s almost become a social norm, even in clubs/bars/pubs if you get caught they normally just kick you out.
Like my 2 esteemed colleagues have said, you could drive a bus through the flaws in the strategy, as the ‘give a fuck factor’ of your average photocopier salesman largin it with a wrap of shit charlie is less than zero – see what I did there.
Just a chance for Leos london to try and make something nice that might trouble the juries, don’t think it will though.
The absurdity, hypocrisy, irony of the ad industry arguing the morale high ground in the war on drugs is really beyond belief considering the traditional consumption of every creative staff that we’ve ever known, and the selling of hedonistic lifestyles on every level that we all participate in as a matter of course and a basic job description.
Legalise recreational drugs, tax them in the same manner as alcohol and tobacco, and by doing so regulate their trade, and all of the problems including a permanent criminal underclass in every country in the world, entire narco-economies in South America and the Middle East that exploit the poorest of their Third World citizens, and an illicit drug culture throughout the First World disappear.
Meh:’Just a chance for Leos london to try and make something nice that might trouble the juries, don’t think it will though.’
Agree, but it’s a strategy that works well for Leo’s Sydney.
Not to mention the delicious irony that this obvious jury-bait will be judged by rooms of gak-addled CDs…
“For every line of cocaine snorted in the UK an innocent life is lost in South America”
I call bullshit on that. And if I do, you can bet the target audience will.
This is a problem when it comes to anti-drug advertising.
Think back to the first anti-drugs message you saw. It was probably “drugs will kill you”. So you try drugs, they don’t kill you. You try more drugs, they still don’t kill you. Suddenly anything you see coming from an anti-drug standpoint, you don’t believe.
I find that irresponsible, and highly dangerous.
What stops me (sometimes) is the thought that I’m giving money to some horrible fucking scumbag like Benji Veniamin or Carl Williams. Yuk.
Hey Scumbag they’re dead now so it’s all probably good guys now.