work for idle hands?

These ads are quite cute, an exiting new media. Nobody seems to have thought of advertising in the gutter before, even though we keep our minds there most of the time. ... Or have they?

The above trio was made by Michael Conrad Leo Burnett GmbH in Frankfurt. Now I can't remember all the award rules, or rather deadlines dates by heart, but this trio of ads won One Show Bronze 2003 and Cannes Lions Bronze for the campaign too. It has to have run a little earlier in the previous year/spring so that it can be eligible for the One show - since the One show is held in early May. It's sleek with the simple lines: "Wrong Color" "Wrong Faith" and "Wrong Opinion" signed the sender: Amnesty.

These ads, which appeared in gutters of Strøget the pedestrian street in Copenhagen were made by Young and Rubicam. I can't recall the exact copy, just that it wrote the viewer on the nose a little with some long sentence explaining; 'kids get jailed in countries far away. Unicef', or the likes.

This one I'm sure I know when it ran as I broke a heel on one of these hands (kidding) these were definitely up for a few days around the first week of November 2002 in Copenhagen Denmark. www.y&r.dk confirms this date.

This is your cue to either laugh heartily or play guess who was first, with some detective work you might find an older gutter ad too.

A little birdie told me the Y&R ad was one of the seven marked "questionable" at this year's Danish ad award, the Guldkorn.

It wasn't disqualified though, and neither were any of the other ads. I believe someone had to get rid of a shipload of dolls' hands. Perhaps an out-of-work adman who found them on eBay?

Update! 27-06-2003 The Leo Burnett ads were indeed made before the Y&R ads, this has been confirmed and they have kindly sent us a much better image.

The Leo Burnett campaign - seen above in all its glory, was on the streets of Frankfurt by September 28 2002.

They had been in talks with their client Amnesty since July. Below is the campaign as featured in a german magazine at the time. It wasn't just hand in grates alone, nearby Amnesty International people were ready to answer questions, take donations, and had petitions ready to sign.

The campaign launched on a Saturday when many people come into Frankfurt for a stroll and some shopping.

Who did the cool and lifelike hands?

Not eBay, but the Trickfilmstudio clay art scopas, Frankfurt.

The team behind the award-winning Amnesty campaign was Caroline Krieger (Account Director), Hans-Jürgen Kämmerer (Art) and Robert Junker (Text), at Amnesty the campaign was handled by Jürgen Krautwald and Ralph Meier.