Oxfam Australia bills the billionaires who can afford to end poverty in new work via Bullfrog
To help Oxfam Australia engage Aussies on the issue of extreme wealth inequality, Bullfrog has partnered with Bone Digital to create the Trillion Dollar Bill; a receipt listing over 8.4 billion items that the world’s 10 richest people can afford to buy – including the solutions to ending poverty.
The world’s 10 richest people have over $1 trillion between them. That obscene amount of wealth is actually enough to end global poverty, with billions left over.
So, why isn’t the other 99% of the world protesting about this? Research has shown that the human brain is unable to compute the value of that many zeros. We simply can’t comprehend what a trillion dollars actually means.
To explain the ever-growing wealth gap and help contextualise just how much wealth we’re actually dealing with here, Oxfam Australia has partnered with Bullfrog and Bone Digital to create the Trillion Dollar Bill – a seemingly endless itemised receipt detailing everything the world’s 10 richest people could afford to buy, including several solutions to world poverty.
The Trillion Dollar Bill contains 8.4 billion items, ranging from everyday purchases, to more expensive luxuries only the 1% can afford.
Says Lauren Eddy, senior copywriter at Bullfrog: “We needed to prove that nothing is out of reach for the super-rich. So of course there are private islands, Bentleys and Post Malone’s diamond pinky ring. But that’s chump change. Look closely and you’ll find more exclusive luxuries, like SpaceX flights, the Burj Khalifa, or Twitter – which, incidentally, is more expensive than providing food security to 490 million hungry people.”
Most importantly, Oxfam Australia has also highlighted special items on the receipt, such as global humanitarian aid and hunger relief, that will make it harder for billionaires to ignore these (really quite affordable) solutions to ending poverty.
Says Mike Doman, executive strategy director at Bullfrog: “Our strategy was to find an entertaining way of quantifying the vast sum of money these billionaires have. Then, we could propose far more constructive ways of spending it, through Oxfam’s proposed wealth tax on the super-rich and, domestically, by opposing stage 3 tax cuts.”
The Trillion Dollar Bill will be promoted across social, PR and throughout the upcoming Melbourne International Comedy Festival, encouraging Australians to reshare and tag a billionaire to send them the bill.
View the page: https://www.oxfam.org.au/taxbillionaires/
Client: Oxfam Australia
Creative & Strategy: Bullfrog
CEO: Dalton Henshaw
Managing Director: Matilda Hobba
Executive Strategy Director: Mike Doman
Strategy Director: Ben Thomas
Executive Creative Directors: Dan Sparkes & Elle Bullen
Senior Business Manager: Megan Wailes
Senior Art Director: Katarina Matic
Senior Copywriter: Lauren Eddy
Senior Designer: Alex Roby
Web Development: Bone Digital
General Manager: Simon Hipgrave
Chief Technical Officer: James Burke
Head of Operations: Luci Trotter
23 Comments
That they’ve got a quote from someone that was doing the work and not pulled an exec level bod in to say something. Refreshing.
I’d like this presser to include more of the work though, a link to a site or more images of it. I just can’t see what it is that was actually done so its hard to take it in
Does anyone actually think money is the problem anymore? More like corrupt governments and global supply chain issues.
$10K for a diamond encrusted teabag?
What is this actually for? Guilt the super-rich? Feels like awards fodder. People already know about the situation in the world. So what is this actually for, apart from taking advantage of the socioeconomically disadvantaged for some bits of meaningless metal? Donate your award budget and make a difference with the money.
This was done before he arrived. He won’t let it happen again.
Literally, it’s just a list. There is nothing else to this.
Once you know the problem, it takes dedication to fix it. People commit their lives to this very real realisation. This feels like a realisation moment, with a long way to go.
I think spending money on Bentleys is already highly constructive. There really are a lot of wowsers in the world.
This is cool, great job guys, nice & simple way to get attention
Smart, simple and powerful. Nice work frogs! P.S. Kobe Bryant jumper for me!
You needed to incentivise it for people to care or share it.
The list doesn’t mention governments that spend billions on tanks and weapons instead of helping their own impoverished.
This idea won’t have any impact
I think the strategy is more applicable on a local level. The super rich in each country could help their more disadvantaged fellow citizens. I think that claim would be widely accepted. Gina Reinhardt could surely take half her wealth and invest it in, say, affordable housing and Australia would be better off in terms of equity. When it comes to global problems, however, there are just too many barriers and competing challenges that blaming billionaires for those problems and suggesting they have the power to solve those issues is wishful thinking at best. Corruption, poor governance, war, climate change etc. etc. have too much influence.
Pretty sure you missed the point if you think an awards budget can make a difference. #EatTheRich!
Agree. A well-meaning idea that because it lacked the depth of understanding missed the point.
I like it. It’s a start, but…
taxing billionairs is like putting a bandaid on a melanoma, it’s not going to stop the root problems, it’s scapegoating people who used the system to their advantage, not the system itself.
Can’t blame the creatives really when the poor strategy clearly led them down a road with only one answer.
“The Trillion Dollar Bill contains 8.4 billion items, ranging from everyday purchases, to more expensive luxuries only the 1% can afford”
Globally, to be part of the 1%, you need an individual salary of $34,000 USD.
But of course that doesn’t suit the narrative of campaigns like this who conveniently believe that the 1% only refers to millionaires or billionaires.
How about we tackle the issues of extractive institutions first; those corrupt governments and agencies who prevent aid from reaching those most in need?
And even if we someone solved world hunger today, the old adage of giving a man a fish and he can eat for a day rings true…but then what?
Yes. Let’s blame planners.
Life is so much easier that way when you don’t have to take any responsibility.
So there was an idea before me?
How it does anything other than say people are rich…. Lots of research but does nothing. These guys need to spend more time on the work, less on the PR
Everyone’s got a hard-on for Elon cos he allowed free speach, (God forbid.) Yet no one is asking the ones who received $44billion to end world hunger. How about asking all the multi trillionaire banking families like the Rosthschild’s and Rockefeller’s?