Every year, at least one advertiser somewhere in the world is guaranteed to exploit the 9/11 attacks with a tasteless ad.
French newspaper Courrier International gets the “honor” this year with an ad suggesting that we could have avoided 9/11 if we’d simply built the twin towers a bit shorter. The ad shows two jets flying over a substantially shorter World Trade Center along with the headline, “Learn to anticipate.”
MyFoxLA has the tasteless details:
The website Ads of the World reported that Saatchi & Saatchi France is the agency behind the ad.
The Montreal Gazette reported that the campaign is an attempt to imply that the newspaper’s coverage will help readers anticipate major events.
The 9/11 terror attack are only one of the events used in the promotion. The campaign also uses the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy and the 1969 moon landing.
Many who have posted comments about the ad on various websites are upset about its insensitivity.
“Stupid beyond belief. There will NEVER be a right time to reference 9/11 in advertising,” reads one comment on the website AdFreak.com. “Oooh, I know, perhaps the Saatchi creatives could do one on the deportation of gypsies from their country,” quipped another post on the site.
Considering that the campaign features three American news events, perhaps the campaign should feature a new headline:
France. Where you can anticipate that nothing of any significance will ever happen.
Source: MyFoxLA.com
