Avaaz, continuing in what has become a great tradition of parody ads, took out space in the "Green New Deal" supplement in the Financial Times today. A quarter page ad on the front page depicts Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Yukio Hatoyama in shiny black outfits and dark sunglasses, posing the question "What is the CliMatrix?" and inviting readers to turn to the back page to find out.

Avaaz took out an advertisement timed to coincide with a summit of EU leaders to try to push for support of a climate finance package and set the stage for Copenhagen in December. The proximity of the summit to Halloween lent itself to a concept that was a lot of fun to work on. As usual, the timing was short, but it turned out well and is printed full page, in full color, in today's international edition of the Financial Times.

This project blossomed into a four page spread after initially being conceived as a single page. Continuing on a successful theme of parodying pop culture to drive home a point, Avaaz.org embedded the drama of the UN global climate talks (in Poznan) and the upcoming EU summit (in Brussels) into a blockbuster storyline emphasizing the epic battle that faces Angela Merkel as she makes some very important decisions regarding the environment and the economy. We created the digital illustrations and other visuals to accompany it -- and we even managed to get a few Ewoks in on the last page.

The third ad in the G8 series by Avaaz.org parodied Street Fighter II, the video game popular in the early nineties which "featured a roster of eight playable characters that could be selected by the player. Ryu and Ken, the main characters from the original Street Fighter returned along with six new characters from different nationalities." [Wikipedia]

[Download a printable PDF of this ad]

Second in a series of three, this ad ran in conjunction with the G8 meetings in Japan. The subject matter was a pop culture reference to something from Japan, a parody of "Hello Kitty" to call out the leaders who are blocking progress on the climate change issue.

This ad was developed in typical Avaaz fashion -- in response to current conditions on the ground, with very little lead-time. It was an attempt to pressure Japan, the USA, and Canada, who were holding up the Bali climate talks by refusing to consider emissions targets.

The concepts evolved slightly in the little time we had available to work on it. The resulting parody of the widely recognizable Titanic poster garnered much press attention and reports indicate that it was instrumental in helping nudge Japan towards accepting emissions targets.