Trial by Timeline
Amnesty International
Issue 25 | December 2012
Agency
Colenso BBDO
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Nick Worthington Creative Director: Levi Slavin Digital Creative Director: Dan Wright Art Director: Anna Stickley Copywriter: Ben Polkinghorne
Production Team
Animation, Executive Producer, Assembly: Amanda Chambers Animation, Design Lead, Assembly: Matt von Trott Animation, Designer, Assembly: Scott Wilson Website: trialbytimeline.org
Other Credits
Account Director: Helen Fitzsimons Account Executive: Eileen Cosgrove-Moloney Planner: Hayley Pardoe Agency Producer: James McMullan Amnesty International: Rebecca Emery, Deputy Director, Campaigns, Research, Advocacy and Communications Amnesty International: Anita Harvey, Media & Communications Manager
Date
October 2012
Background
In a country as fortunate as New Zealand, the work of Amnesty International was understood and supported by only a small group of people.
The freedom of its citizens to be themselves, to say what they thought, to wear what they wanted and to choose their own friends was taken for granted.
Idea
Amnesty wanted New Zealanders to understand that the organisation was made up of ordinary people standing up for human rights.
Trial by Timeline was a Facebook application that scanned people’s Facebook Timeline and showed them what some of their comments or behaviours might have cost them in different countries around the world.
“It’s nice to be able to contribute to a societal challenge and use creativity for good. We hope it will make a difference”, said Colenso BBDO Managing Director, Nick Garrett.
To see what crimes you’re guilty of, go to www.trialbytimeline.org.nz
Results
The campaign has just launched.
Our Thoughts
I don’t think I have ever actually posted anything on my Facebook wall yet when my profile was scanned by this app, I could have been arrested in two countries for being an atheist (in that I have not declared my religious affiliation on Facebook).
In a free and open society like New Zealand or the UK, the photographs people put up on Facebook and the comments they write seem innocuous yet it is only too plausible to see how they could be interpreted in another culture as being subversive and offensive. Even criminal.
And that’s what this app does brilliantly, force you to compare and contrast the little things in your own life which could lead to torture, imprisonment and even execution in someone else’s.
Colenso BBDO will be one of the top agencies of 2012 in the Directory Big Won Report in January despite the fact this won’t be winning awards until 2013.