Amnesty International Ads Show What's Happening

Amnesty International in Switzerland broke a new outdoor campaign May 29th that was created by Walker Werbeagentur Zuerich. The campaign uses the tagline "It's not happening here but it's happening now", in various languages, from French to German. Using the transparent billboards, the campaign aims to show people what is going on in the world, even if it's not happening in front of them at the bus stop. The ads portray issues in countries like Iraq, China, and Sudan.

Walker Werbeagentur Zuerich

Adland® is supported by your donations alone. You can help us out by buying us a Ko-Fi coffee.
Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
comment_node_story
Files must be less than 1 MB.
Allowed file types: jpg jpeg gif png wav avi mpeg mpg mov rm flv wmv 3gp mp4 m4v.
AnonymousCoward's picture

I wonder if they have any pics of the orange jumpsuit guys blowing up buses in Israel. I'm pretty sure there are some people in Israel who want amnesty from being blown up by those guys while going grocery shopping.

Dabitch's picture

... Oh yeah... I recall seeing something like that. Anyone able to get an image of said ad?

AnonymousCoward's picture

Fallon did this 20 years ago with an image of a pregnant Mary, Joseph and a camel waiting for a bus. Still works but it's not original

Dabitch's picture

Remember the transparancy meme? see here on flickr all screens transparent.

AnonymousCoward's picture

So if somebody blows himself up and kills innocent people you have the right to treat suspects as animals before even taking to court. Also you can fire rockets to potential suicide bombs sitting on a beach. Well they are 5 years old but who cares? They will grow up and become suicide bombs. Justice is not for a group of people, it is for everybody. I read the news of suicidebombers with tears in my eyes for the innocent who dies with this twisted rage, but treating all the arabs as potential bombs and treating them like animals? I still can not understand how a nation suffered so much from prejudice somehow justifies the same prejudice to others.

Dabitch's picture

I found some Amnesty posters on flickr too. None taken at night though. ;)
But there are some wide posters, like this wide poster and this other wide poster taken from an off angle, both in trainstations. And then this one, on the street.

caffeinegoddess's picture

Found someone who took a snap of one of these here on Flickr.

Andreas-Udd's picture

Ok, any adgrunts in Switzerland? Please take a photo of the posters at night and upload/email we wanna see it!

Dabitch's picture

They all look like photos of the background montaged for each poster site - which makes me wonder, what do they look like at night? Pretty strange I assume. ;)

Edit: they photographed each poster and then photoshopped the situation into the scene where the posters are, says this article. The images only work when you see them from the right angle.

caffeinegoddess's picture

It's impressive how much people are taking notice of this.

From the first two posted, if you look closely they don't line up totally with the surroundings (roof and the tree)...it's slightly off which makes me think they are photographs of the location. Although I've no idea if that's the case for all of them.

Neo's picture

Aren't these just photoshopped images? It's too good to be true.

Dabitch's picture

Heh. Cute.
Are these posters really transparent though? They seem like they can be in some cases, for example the one with the orange-jumpsuited prisoners - that type of poster-site can't be made transparent, it seems more likely it's a photograph specifically designed to be at that site.

In the Sonox case we had to build the transparent plexiglass posters ourselves, as regular poster media can't do transparent, there's usually lights and crap in them.

aiiobo's picture

Nobody pointed this out yet? Transparent posters that rely on the background to make an impact has been done before, by Dabitch herself even. Remember the Sonox campaign in Amsterdam? Later badlanded because some local papers sports pages had done that same "framing" thing.

Ok, fine, so the similarities is just in the posters being transparent. I try. ;)

This campaign is great. I predict Cannes metal.

shmulikber's picture

that. is. some. real. good. execution.

Neo's picture

Copycat ;)

rasorfrog's picture

Amnesty just finished a brilliant commercial on the same "Not here, but now" thought. I think it's even better than the posters. Click on English: http://www.walker.ag/index_walker.php?cID=ai&mID=0

Achilleus's picture

They all look like photos of the background montaged for each poster

Dabitch's picture
Jenise's picture

It's like people are more worried about the posters being transparent or not rather than the underlying issue.

Rajk937's picture

Hi, these images are photo shopped to the given background, they are not transparent.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017148280

The link above has a video that briefly shows them photo shopping the abuse picture onto the background picture.

AnonymousCoward's picture

Am I the only one that sees the irony in the fact that Amnesty International which is a very liberal organization posts pictures at various bus stops portraying the atrocities done in various communist countries like North Korea, China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam etc? When liberals themselves love and embrace these very same countries because of their marxist communist ideologies? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the Iran and Sudan pictures. But it's as if liberals have no idea that what they stand for, is also what they are against!

pauline's picture

i love how instead of commenting on the shock value and the actual events all anyone can discuss is if they're photographs or transparent... smh.

kidsleepy's picture

I'm surprised a campaign from 2006 is still being talked about.

Dabitch's picture

It's doing the rounds again. I've told you my theory about prime numbers and viral spread. It was due.

Perks's picture

These images are incredibly well placed for maximum impact. Their impact has moved me. I am filled with emotions of sadness for the peoples who have to endure these atrocities. Well done Amnesty International - again. These designs are so powerful.

FALUN DAFA EXTREMIST's picture

Amnasty International are ditry and liars they support extremist falun gong cults

FALUN DAFA EXTREMIST's picture

Dirty Falun Gong Cults such a liar and a fake