Greenpeace ages world leaders in head-turning ads

[The Straight Story]

The environmental activism group Greenpeace, no stranger to controversy, is at it again. In conjunction with the start of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Denmark, the group has teamed up with TckTckTck to plaster the Copenhagen airport with advertisements featuring drastically altered images of famous world leaders participating in the summit. Though some industry observers have labeled the campaign "lame" and "dour," the group says the reaction to the ads thus far has been "phenomenal."

The aforementioned posters feature the faces of U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, just to name a few, as they would possibly look in 2020. Next to each leader's image is an apology from the future that reads, "I'm sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change... We didn't." Toby Cotton, the writer of the ads, said his intention was to make "world leaders think twice about the consequences of their action or inaction now."

When asked by Yahoo News! if the ads have generated any reaction from the various world leaders or their camps, a Washington, D.C.-based Greenpeace spokesperson said, "We look forward to the reactions of heads of state as they arrive," adding that the ads have been "quite popular" with the general public so far.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1019