Another 9/11 Ad: BBDO Moscow Uses September 11th Imagery In Moscow News Ad

Here we go again.

Just days after DDB Brasil came under fire for using 9/11 imagery in print and television ads, another company is using the September 11th attacks as commercial fodder.

The advertising firm BBDO Moscow created the ad below for the Russian newspaper the Moscow News. While clearly less extreme than the DDB Brasil spot, it nevertheless raises the question of whether companies should be using 9/11 in advertising.

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Is it wrong to reference 9/11 in advertisements?

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No

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Comments

[Judyisacutie]

I never want to see an image of 9/11 ever again. It is still too painful for me. I don't even want to think about it.

[MrHacks]

It's all about context. On top of that, I highly doubt the artist had the origami skills to create a mini Auschiwtz or Eddie Adam's photo of Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing Nguyen Van Lem.

[ominous]

This doesn't particularly bother me, but I have to wonder if there are more ads to this campaign. Did they perhaps pick other current events to highlight as well?

[underthegun1]

I'm buyin! Ok now who should we go to war with for no reason?

[ForeverXL]

Wow. Beautiful artwork.
That being said: I think it is not wrong to use 9/11 imagery.

[iLoveOldNY]

That's because you weren't here. It's not artwork, it's an ad campaign.

Exploiting mass murder for marketing purposes is tasteless and vile.

[drcrank]

"Exploiting mass murder for marketing purposes is tasteless and vile."

Agreed. It was even more vile when Bush did it.

[ForeverXL]

An ad campaign can be art, if the image itself is considered to be of artful standard and that is in the eye of the beholder.

Over time many cruel incidents have become objects of inspiration to artists. I cannot see why this would be wrong or tasteless. Obviously it depends on the message they want to convey with it.

[judiNJ]

I also think it is very well done. However, having been there, I cannot imagine using 9/11 in ads and I was furious with Rudy for using it over and over in his campaign. Sort of like using Pearl Harbor in ads. Bad taste.

[ForeverXL]

I understand where you are coming from, but read my comment above to the other one. :)

[goodog]

It's not as if the message is particularly pro-terrorist.

Is any artistic rendition of that day tasteless, or does it have something to do with this particular messenger?

Would the same image without text have been just as bad, better, or worse?

Are we not allowed to depict the day, except in prescribed ways... is this our Muhammad cartoon, a blasphemy American's can't deal with?

[Zeebob]

Anyone looking to learn more about what happened on 911 should watch "september clues" its a real eye opener. Its freely distributed on mininova dot org, you need a free program to get it, I prefer utorrent.

[OneLiberalLady]

The local Tea Party group in my town is using 9/11 to attract people to a rally they are putting on at our local theater, a 1300 seat venue that enjoys major subsidies from our local government. The show they are promoting is ostensibly to show support for 9/11 victims (8 years later) but also includes the stated goal to resist expanding government (their words).
I find this a much more cynical and offensive use of the tragedy of 9/11 than an ad in a Russian newspaper. In fact, their callous manipulation of the event to attract people to their event is appalling.

[hippiesandwich]

And yet the same folks didn't complain when Shrub "expanded the government" with things like the Patriot Act or ran up the deficit spreading freedom in Iraq...

[judiNJ]

Yuck, that is ugly. I have no respect for anyone using 9/11, and I mean the word, "using".

[AliveInNYC]

Would that include Rudy Guliani "using" 9/11 as a reason to vote for him?

His whole campaign was noun, verb, 9/11

[naturallight]

boj edisni

bakwords

[redcelt]

9/11 has become The Tower in the arcana of contemporary imagery, transforming the event into mythis language.

[DallasDon]

If Rudy G. runs for governor of N.Y. I expect his campaign slogan will be "Remember 9/11." With bumper stickers, buttons and ads depicting the twin towers.

[Alarmist]

But, but, but, he's America's Mayor!

[judiNJ]

A pronoun, a verb and 9/11.

[lawrencemuh]

if it got a hpost spot..it's a good ad

[rememberthepoor]

That picture is bluntly nauseating, even if it were unrelated to 9-11. Being related to it is reprehensible and won't appeal to anyone. It could be used to sell anti-nausea pills, however.

[egaeus]

Time and Newsweek would use such images to advertise that they report on important issues. This isn't an ad for a travel agent or a fast food place. It's an ad for a newspaper. Imagine what this says as to the significance of 9-11. A Russian newspaper, rather than putting something Russian in the ad, uses an image calling to mind the Twin Towers. The Brazil ad, rather than comparing the tsunami to another disastrous event, calls to mind the horror of 9-11 to suggest that that same horror should be felt when other world citizens die in terrible ways. Both uses are legitimate.

[Richard Claverie]

I agree with you. 9/11 was a horrific event, but an event never-the-less. Asking the world, most of whom share our pain, to not use the imagery is extreme bordering on the farcical.

[LongTimeLiberal52]

Well - and bravely - said.

As someone who watched two friends die that September day from only blocks away, I've long felt that the "sacred" aura assigned to 9/11 by our nation's leaders was self-serving, disproportionate, and repulsive from the very start. We've already witnessed a government­-orchestra­ted ad campaign designed solely to bring our bloodlust to boil, and pave the way for all manner of atrocities to be committed under the guise of "honoring" the fallen.

Politicians who wrapped themselves in the flag while chanting "9/11, 9/11, 9/11" - and then lying us into an unnecessary war, assaulting the Constitution, and destroying our economy in the name of "spreadin' democracy" - denigrated the memory of the dead far more than this foreign ad. I've even seen "commemorative" events for this tragedy that culminated in FIREWORKS, for heaven's sake, without a hint of realization as to the insensitive inappropriateness of bombs bursting in air.

Instead of learning on that day that we, too, are simply citizens of the world, America's unthinking masses seem only to have become more arrogant, posturing that OUR pain on that day was the worst ever suffered - and that no one other than the members of the GOP cabal dare utter the words "nine eleven" except in hushed, reverent tones.

[judiNJ]

I will forever be angry that it has been used, and we were used.

[ReichWingKaput]

"Things hard to explain,
in a language you understand."

Yes, simplified, stupefied, stripped of context and history,
reduced to the lowest common denominator,
put into 5th grade syntax, and slanted to the ideological views of the publisher.

Oh yeah, with a snappy visual.