Posters and billboards began popping up in major American cities last week proclaiming that “Hipsters Deserve to Die.” Sort of shocking to say the least.
Also named as “deserving to die” are: the tattooed, cat lovers, the genetically privileged, crazy old aunts and various other niche groups. Each poster uses a photo portrait to demonstrate the labeled persona. Click through the tabs above to see the work.
This has been upsetting some people in cities like Chicago where people tore down the posters in anger. ”I think that’s very offensive to people who are animal lovers,” Shelli Williams told the Chicago CBS station when first shown the cat lovers version of the poster. These types of reactions have prompted news coverage already. People seem to be a bit confused as to why anyone would post these types of messages.
That is precisely the point though. One quick click at the campaign’s website URL reveals that NoOneDeservesToDie’s goal is to raise awareness for a deadly disease that “doesn’t discriminate.” The point seems to be that whatever you might be labeled by society-at-large – that none of us deserve to die. [The site reports that 158,000+ people died of lung cancer in 2008.]
The campaign was designed by Wisconsin agency Laughlin Constable and the Lung Cancer Alliance “We knew that one would be polarizing,” Laughlin Constable strategy VP Denise Kohnke told a Milwaukee TV station.
What do you think? Does it work?
trying too hard… AD ego… esoteric disconnect…
I think advertising that tries to be too clever by half ends up being about the ad itself, not the intended reason.
In this case, people are talking about the ad approach, the poster, the agency, the audacity, the point, the concept…
And that serves people dying how?
Is there an uptick in the awareness of the problem?
Is there an uptick in the coffers of charities to help the problem?
Is there anything in place to measure metrics on this campaign?
Is the awareness of the ad agency up a tick or two?
Just asking.
If you have to explain the joke/ad it wasn’t all that successful.
My take anyway.
It worked as entertainment but as some said- it’s too negative and only targets those who gives a hoot to click on the web. Once it’s figured out- I just let a very tiny ‘ah’. Leaving the ‘?’ from the text is somewhat creative mischief to get attention certainly. But does it evoke a call to action? I think not. Saying groups of people deserve to die is a nasty curse- one of the nastiest- I expected lowlifes or fictional characters but this is plain wrong.
A recent Thai campaign IMO hit the spot much better but bad of me to compare a video with a bunch of stills.
Kind of reminds me of Oliviero Toscani’s campaign for Benetton.
Freedom of Speech. period.
But should not cause others harm.