This ad is made using food wasted by agencies...

In the year gone by we witnessed the meteoric rise of purpose-driven advertising and, naturally, we couldn't help but cover the subject extensively! Starting from a bakery brand to Ariel's Dads #ShareTheLoad, the cause-led approach is something that some of today’s brands swear by.

Suffice to say, not many of us saw this coming, but we are pleasantly surprised, to say the least. And more so with the recent, FCB-led approach.

FCB Interface tailored the theme for AdFest (Asia Pacific Advertising Festival, Asia’s premier creative awards function scheduled for 20-23rd March in Pattaya, Thailand) 2019’s Young Lotus contest and this year’s agenda is inviting ideas to end food wastage. By far, the most intriguing part of the campaign is that the ads are made from real food!

The Young Lotus Workshop is a contest organised by the AAAI (Advertising Agencies Association of India) and AdFest. What drew our attention to this year’s theme was the ‘personalisation’ of the communication which, in a way, helped shatter the ‘we don’t waste food’ illusion, making the need to address the issue urgent and immediate.

ALSO READ: Duo from JWT wins AAAI's Young Lotus Workshop Contest

The ads have been entirely made of the food wasted by leading advertising agencies (starting with the biggies - Ogilvy, JWT and FCB, of course!) that have huge kitchen spaces.

The creative agency deliberately kept it hush-hush and the entire procedure of collecting the food waste from 118 agencies, which are part of AAAI, took two days, is what an agency source tells us. FCB Interface made a “sly” attempt to collect all the food wasted and then, in a truly inspired ironic theme, turned it into ‘food-wastage’ posters, on a life-size canvas, on a daily basis.

Here' what Robby Mathew, CCO, FCB Interface has to say, “The difficult part was rummaging through the waste bins of all the leading advertising agencies, carting away the food in mini trucks, then creating the 14 by 19 foot layouts with putrefying food hanging from a crane, to be shot for the artwork. All this while shooing away the crows and dogs that were hell-bent on eating the poster!”

Speaking about the campaign, Rohit Ohri, group chairman and CEO, FCB India and chairman, Young Lotus Selection Team at AAAI, says, “This piece of work was not just a call for entries, it was a call for behaviour change.”

Credits:

Client: Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI)

Brand Team: Sudesh Kapoor, Chetan Salian

Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Rohit Ohri

Chief Creative Officer: Robby Mathew

Chief Executive Officer: Joemon Thaliath

Senior Creative Director: Mukesh Jadhav, Ashutosh Joshi

Art Directors: Durgesh Satish Amble, Ketan Sudhir Kadam, Shireesh Bhavsar, Ashwini Raorane

Copywriters: Vignesh Iyer, Adith Mili Francis Fernandes, Imaan Surve

Account Management: Cornell Rocha, Andrea D’souza

Print Production: Hemant Randive, Aditya Dighe, Sajid Sheikh, Dilip Indule, Akash Surve

Photographer/Director: Aslam K Puriyal, Akhil, Raunak Kanade

Producer: Nizam Tolan, Dildar Tolan

Production House: McTolan Films