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Vent Inspection Ad

Pepco, Lewiatan, Zlote Tarasy, The National Fire State

Issue 47 | June 2018

Agency

Grey Group Poland

Creative Team

Executive Creative Director Jakub Korolczuk Art Director Dominika Halas Copywriters Jakub Korolczuk, Marek Go´rski

Production Team

Production Team Aleksandra Sliwinska, Anna Green

Other Credits

Other Per Pedersen, Anna Panczyk, Adam Smilowski, Rafal Rys, Izabela Lukaszewska – Grygoruk, Weronika Kendra, Dominika Jezierska, Karolina Gruz

Date

February 2018

Background

Every year, more than a hundred people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Poland, and nearly two thousand became seriously ill. One of the main causes of poisoning was a malfunctioning vent system. There were fancy hi-tech systems that could save people from carbon monoxide poisoning but there was also a free and reliable life-saving hack.

Idea

All anyone needed to do was put a piece of paper on the ventilation grid inside their flat or house. If the vent system was working as it should then the piece of paper should stick to it. However, if the vent was blocked, which was when car- bon monoxide poisoning was a real risk, then the paper would not stick and the householder needed to call for help.

Carbon monoxide detectors were expen- sive. But this simple initiative, supported by discount store Pepco, supermarket brand Lewiatan and shopping centre Zlote Tarasy created a solution by turning 28 million leaflets into ‘vent inspection ads’.

Results

A simple life saving solution through something as banal as an ad

Our Thoughts

When I first started as a creative director, David Ogilvy told me that he was worried the word creativity had come to mean ‘award-winning’. For him, creativity was looking at a problem and finding a solution. Sometimes the solution might even be in an advertisement. I’m with him. Like last year, I suspect that most of the print ads that win at Cannes this year will be clever, arresting and will show off the creatives’ craft skills beautifully, but creative? No.

Then there’s this. It has no chance of winning an award because it doesn’t look polished and artful. And instead of helping save lives, it may actually have saved lives. Personally, I’d give it a Gold for being the most genuinely useful print ad I’ve seen all year. Maybe that’s why I don’t get invited onto juries very often these days!