NGO urges Australians to take action with ‘refugees are scum’ social experiment
Non-governmental agency Act for Peace has challenged Australians to turn words into actions by conducting a social experiment in which a man wears a placard and hands out leaflets declaring “refugees are scum”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA-Im1o2uEI
A 60-second video, produced by creative agency Digital Storytellers and shot in Sydney’s CBD, films the shock reaction to the message. One passerby – who initially walks past – returns to rip the placard off the man.
Another brands him a “fucking disgrace”.
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/.....age-156924
I can’t believe they tried such blatant plagiarism. It’s one of the first things you learn in uni, you can rip off someone entirely as long as you ‘acknowledge it’
Thanks for sharing Mumbrella!
The Pilion Trust and Publicis did it a year ago. Digital Storytellers are obviously into recycling too.
Hi Sam. Pillion Trust were a great inspiration for this video for the team at Act for Peace. We contact the team at the UK based NGO and notified them of the great influence their successful campaign had for us. We definitely are not claiming original content but believe the original UK based experiment was easily positioned in an Australian Audience with the topical issue of refugees.
Is Publicis London happy with this?
@Karen McGrath there’s a chasmic difference between influence and copying.
@Sam Eoldidea I definitely respect your opinion and it was discuss internally and with more experienced people in the digital media sector. We came to the conclusion that the concept behind the Pillion Video was not original itself but is one of a multitude of social experiment videos that has been released (The Pillion video just got traction as it was professionally produced by a very well known advertising agency). The power is not in the creativity or the format of the video (which is what the creative influence was) but in the natural and unplanned response of the public. The public’s reaction is what makes this video so powerful and the exposure that this video will give to the important issue of refugees is extremely large. Great ideas should be shared, adapted and appropriated to difference audiences and we support both the work of the Pillion Trust in the UK and the use of this video for an Australian audience to discuss a very important issue.
@Karen McGrath Righto.
Blatant plagiarism if you ask me. You wouldn’t steal a car / handbag / television…
Sam, should Ford sue GM for making cars too? Far out?
Provocative stunts have been around for years. There isn’t a patent on wearing a sandwich board / human billboard, which have also been around for years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_billboard
Are you suggesting that because somebody has previously filmed people wearing a sandwich board, then nobody else is allowed to?
You can’t separate the creativity or the format from the public’s reactions – there wouldn’t be one without the other. Forget the excuses, you ripped off someone’s idea.
Tell me you didn’t charge them for it?
Hear hear. Well done @Karen McGrath & Act for Peace.
There’s nothing more important than making sure charities use completely original ideas… to the advertising industry.
The rest of the world – especially the refugees they’re trying to help – couldn’t give a flying.
@Sam Eoldidea – praps you should get your priorities right. Of course charities should keep re-using ideas if they work. This pointless, purist obsession with originality over effectiveness is drivel. The byproduct of an industry mindset in a self-important bubble.
Yep, perhaps they should’ve included a footnote in their press release. But I hope you donated more than just your snide observations.
@Stormy Teacup. BOOM, hell yes and thank you.
Well done @Karen McGrath and co.
@Stormy Teacup Could not have put it better myself. Thank you.
Blatant plagiarism. The only difference between the two videos is that the word poor was substituted for the word refugee.
Blatant plagiarism. The only difference between the two videos is that the word poor was substituted for the word refugee.
This is blatant. Even the endframe copy is the same.
[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment policy]
Call it a Social psychology experiment, where the authors are trying to achieve reproducibility of results to validate earlier experiment.
Normal part of scientific endeavour, which needs to happen more often.
Did anyone else think the guy who ripped the sandwich board away was super hot? 🙂
Whatever works. And this one does.
And this student video that went viral last year – 1.9m views and counting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZVqUU_R9Vc
Red and Black Shirted Activist: “Enough of this Abbott Government, time to organise the masses behind a revolution!”
Suit: “Sorry, but “Revolution™” was trademarked around October/November 1917 by V. Lenin, and still holds. Your storming of The Lodge may infringe their copyright. Think of the consequences from that!”
Suit2: “Yeah, get original!”
very much appreciate that karen is posting here & responding to negative comments, great stuff.
i think stormy teacup summed it up best…no one other than advertising wonks cares if it is plagiary & the message is more important than the clip itself.
however i will say that as soon as i saw the image my first thought was oh it’s the “f**k the poor” campaign but for refugees.
Wow, blatant plagiarism. Have ad agencies run out of ideas already?
Virtual reality is not reality. For quite a long time now, the world has been reproducing rather than producing. Classic films are remade, old ideas are denigrated while at the same time hidden or obscure old ideas are rekindled and brushed up to be presented as if they were new ideas.
Why work hard and genuinely create something, when you can now search the entire result of past effort (without the need to use a library or undertake a course of study) and become an instant clever clogs and paid up producer, writer, ideas person etc.
I think it’s okay to steal an idea as long as you acknowledge it first, you don’t make any money out of it and you don’t try and get any creative kudos for it. (This example possibly passes all three tests by the sounds of it.)
Otherwise it’s much the same as an architect stealing another architects plans and passing it off as his or her own.
Hi All. Thank you for all the support. Act for Peace definitely in no way went out to get creative claim on this idea. It has been reworked many times and we just believe that it was great was for an Australian audience to discuss this idea of refugees. We are definitely not a big agency and pushed this project forward for the positive response from the public and the great awareness it would raise. It has reached over 270,000 so I believe we are fulfilling our aims!
What a load. This advertisement screams laziness.
Would be happy to show you our project plans and strategy @Jack and can assure you that the hardwork and dedication of people working in the charity sector in general is a far cry from ‘Laziness’, in this campaign and any other. The most important thing I believe is not your opinion or mine but the fact that we have reached a large audience with an extremely important message. Refugees are some of the world’s most vulnerable people and the aim of this campaign and video launch is to support them, not to get any kind of acclaim or advertising kudos.
Lazy… oddly that nails the self-serving deceit of it @Jack.
Most pro bono work is done to win awards – lets not kid ourselves. Highly original and usually ineffective.
What if that probono time was rather spent replicating campaigns that were proven to have worked?
Doubt too many agencies would sign up to that. And fair enough, agencies should have an incentive too. But that’s not probono – its quid pro quo.
And if they were paid to do this? Well i know i’d rather give my money to the charity that went with a proven idea, than one that paid for an untested idea that was more original, but costlier, and riskier. In all honesty, which course do you reckon is more responsible?
Praps ‘lazy’ is not thinking beyond the industry bubble.
Thus we gain an insight into stormy teacup’s notion of lazy, very interesting.
This is my notion of what the ad is. A manipulation of reality, in order to overlay a possible argument about refugees, supported by a kind of truth which has been invented by the producers. Even in today’s world, where reality and drama are switched and superimposed at will by news and current affairs producers hungry for ratings, this entire production has fraudulence written all over it.
The term Refugees, has become one with an elastic definition, more accurately, a range of definitions which are compounded as required to suit any one of a range of arguments.
Too academic, @Richard Moss. Refugee, climate change, homelessness, whatever.
They mishandled the attribution of an idea – fine. But they’re not entering any awards. They’re just trying to help people FFS. Our priorities are petty.