http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem13540.html

The post above will take you to the WWF --(NOT the World Wrestling Federation, now defunct) but the World Wildlife Fund's website, where they issued an apology and a clear dis-association with an advertisement created by an outside ad agency, that insensitively depicted numerous planes flying toward Manhattan island with the caption "the tsunami killed 100 times as many people as 9/11". It should never have seen the light of day, yet somehow managed to get to an advertising award panel, and received an award. I am not providing a link to the image, because I personally feel that it is a) tasteless and b) should be a non-issue because WWF has made it clear they are not to be held responsible; it was rejected before it ever made it to print.

However, WWF IS responsible in one sense: by outsourcing their advertising campaigns to agencies like DDB, WWF is asking for events like this to happen. Hire your own fucking marketing team, pay them salaries, watch them like hawks, and don't follow the 'outsourcing' trend, which, as a not-for-profit, progressive organization you SHOULD be opposed to in principle. Then shit like this will never hit the fan. Outsourcing leads to PR nightmares, and makes it that much more difficult to know who's 'working' for you.

A couple of comments about the media/public outcry about the message of the ad: While I am in complete agreement that the ad is reprehensible, it is noteworthy to observe that commenters on various news websites that have decided to run this as a major story, mainly direct their hatred and vitriolic comments toward the WWF and all types of "greenpeace-shit-oriented hippy" organizations instead of the one ad. agency that was responsible. The conclusion to be drawn is that people want to hate environmentalists, animal rights advocates, (and the list could go on to gay rights advocates etc. etc.) and so conveniently use this kind of dubiously connected evidence to fuel that hatred. While, of course, simultaneously ignoring the press release that shows that WWF did not authorize the ad to go to print-- actually, they condemned it.

A more general point to be made is to observe how, to borrow Slavoj Zizek's idea, you CANNOT steal people's enjoyment today. The actual point made by the ad is a factual statement, it cannot be denied, and what is REALLY getting people upset is not the WAY the ad makes its point but the FACT that it IS making it, period. This is not acceptable. While I agree with the visual tastelessness of the ad, one can't say they're wrong for saying what they're saying. (which, in my own interpretation, is to make the comparison between natural disasters stimulated by climate change, and terrorist attacks: there are interesting comparisons to be drawn between Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami, and 9/11, not in the actual events themselves, but in how these various events are represented, pictured, covered in the media, memorialized, what one can say about them and how one says it, etc.)

Non-profit organizations that are fighting for change are in the business of being provocative, of probing at people's sorest spots, and are in constant danger of being a target for people's actual unconscious SELF-rage, which is displaced upon them. In short, these NGO's are quite often in the position of the analyst. At some point, they will occasionally cross the line between what is acceptable provocation and what is unacceptable. It is difficult to constantly walk that line and not fall off on each side, by either being so politically correct that your ads are effete and ineffectual at provoking any kind of reaction, or going too far the other way, offending huge numbers of people, and thus tarnishing your image and subverting your aims.

Back to Zizek's idea: he would likely agree, that although unacceptable, the reaction to the ad is interesting nonetheless because it shows how much of a trauma still remains with regard to 9/11, which in turn suggests that mourning hasn't really taken place, or that it is been transgressed altogether by other coping mechanisms like repression or random outbursts of violence against "straw-people" scapegoats. Jerry Falwell, as right-wing America's spiritual leader, helped all his followers unburden themselves of their feelings of grief, outrage, and impotence by having his congregation of several million dump it all on gays, lesbians, African-Americans, and socialists.

And it is also interesting that it is particularly VISUAL representations of NYC sans the two towers, (like the one in the non-existent ad campaign) that are especially triggering. Not only does this indicate the full transition we've made in postmodernity to being a visual, rather than textual society-- note that the printed word never evokes the kind of reaction that a photo does, people and organizations can (and do) say anything all over the internet, and most of it simply gets ignored)-- if it is SHOWN, depicted visually, the reaction is all the more hyperbolic. I can only hypothesize at this point that, particularly with regard to images of the NYC skyline, it is associated with the excessive and overblown visual coverage of the actual events of September 11, 2001, and the repetitiveness with which it was broadcast. Our memories of, and the traumatic responses to that day, are bound up with the images that remain in the heads of all those who sat in front of their boob tube, transfixed. (Fredric Jameson argues that "the visual is essentially pornographic", in his Signatures of the Visible). It seems to me that it wouldn't be far-fetched to argue that the combination of horror/enjoyment (or spectacle), the contradictory responses that such a combination provoke, make it much more difficult to disentangle our reactions, and therefore prevent effective and respectful mourning and memorializing, and until we confront our own complicity, our own guilt, in being passive consumers of this event, we will never get beyond it.