The land mine sticker above is part of a land mine awareness campaign by Unicef (United Nations Children’s Fund). The other side is sticky and camouflaged with a pattern to match flooring. When the camouflaged ad is stepped on, it sticks to the bottom of the shoe. The text on the front reads, “In many other countries you would now be mutilated! Help the victims of land mines!”
There is a beauty to this type of guerilla advertising. It allows for an organization without a lot of resources to spend a small amount of money on a clever advertising gimmick and then see their message spread multiply through the internet as sics like ours report the gimmick. Some of us even have enough shame to spread the message as well.
Where we live, if we fail to watch where we step, we end up with a smelly shoe. Other countries aren’t so lucky. For more on Unicef and land mines, see their page here:
http://www.unicef.org/emerg/index_landmines.html
Brilliant. Most humanitarian organizations think their message should stand out just by being factual, but this kind of mental trick is absolutely necessary to penetrate the distraction of our everyday lives. It’s like that viral video a while back with the blind homeless guy and the marketer who changed the message on his sign.
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that video. For those of the rest of you who haven’t, check it out here: