UNICEF's Video on Children's Rights

Please take time to watch this beautiful video. It won't take too much of your time, it's only a 90-second ad.

Just click this link below.

UNICEF "Lipad" TVC90s

This magnificent 90-second TV commercial gives a fresh perspective to children's rights, different from the Bantay-Bata ads shown in ABS-CBN channels. In the recent bi-annual Araw Awards, the Philippine Advertising Industry gave this TV ad the Platinum Award for values in advertising. Unfortunately, very few have seen it. It needs TV stations that would give it pro-bono airtime exposure.


Message from the Creative Team:

We're sick of having children portrayed as victims. No matter how creatively done, too much communication asking for an end to violence against children is done from a victim perspective. Not the best way to go about solving the problem, we felt. Specially not in a world where displays of weakness invite more harm than sympathy and protection. So we at DentsuINDIO figured to turn the perspective around. Literally as well as figuratively. Instead of talking about Violence Against Children, we said, let's make Children Against Violence happen. A more active stance. A definite stand. A hopefully communal declaration that children are fed up with the shit adults dish out and are ready to do something about it.

DentsuIndio

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CREDITS

Directed By: Henry Frejas
Agency Producer: Telly Arce
Production House: Filmex
ECD: Lawin Bulatao
Copy: Aste Gutierrez & Lawin Bulatao
Art Direction: Milton Ganelo


Excerpts from the article of Nanette A. Franco-Diyco of the BusinessWorld Weekender:

Lawin Bulatao, Dentsu Indio executive creative director, explained the creative progression as beginning from the client’s briefing. Advocacies on children’s abuse predictably dwell on the victimized children and the brutalities foisted on them by a cruel world. This time around, Dentsu Indio and UNICEF fully treaded the path of unpredictability. Children from all walks of life were made to wage the war against violence.


Different kids are shown spouting their own respective wishes, as they each fly their own planes symbolic of their wishes rising for someone to catch and hopefully grant. The commercial is in beautiful Tagalog that wrenches your heart in its simplicity. Good copywriting here.

The paper plane is the unifying thread from start to finish. Great choice of mnemonic device, so natural to the children while being visually enriching to the commercial itself. In translation, "I wish they stopped hitting me. I wish they stopped locking me up in my room. I wish they stopped calling me stupid. I wish they stopped calling me lazy. I wish they stopped banging my head against the wall. I wish they stopped using me as an ashtray. I wish I didn’t have to stand in the corner again. I wish they would stop slapping me around. I wish I didn’t have to work in a factory anymore. I wish I could go back to school again." The final frame has dozens of different kids flying paper planes (a total of 10,000 paper planes were made to fly by the agency and production teams!) as they climb up a hill. Then it ends with a beautiful Tanay sunset, as the commercial ends, too, with its final wish, "I wish this reaches you."

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The executive creative director is the son of my friend/colleague/mentor.

TESS. LIFE IS NOT ALWAYS A BED OF ROSES.