This advert creates a great piece of cinematography and builds tension really well. Showing an almost apocalyptic view of a major American city with the lack of any human presence. All we can see is polar bears slowly falling through the sky until they all start crashing into the ground and buildings.
I can see the reasoning behind this execution but the facts are very clearly misleading and therefore the message behind the advert completely disappears. Planestupid.com would love us all to believe that everytime we fly , we are killing polar bears in a horrible fashion and at the rate that the advert shows. I personally understand that flying is a contributer to global warming and there is no denying that this is occurring. However, I also understand that air travel only accounts for a very minimal percentage of global warming and is in fact a very environmentally friendly form of travel when compared against others.
The message therefore is going to find it very hard to resonate with the people it is most trying to reach. We know that air travel is bad for the environment but everything is bad for the environment – switching lights on, watching tele, driving to work etc. We don’t fly for the fun of flying, we fly to get somewhere, to do something, to enjoy ourselves. This advert consequently is not going to make us fly less, it will purely just make us believe what many do already in that some environmentalists are just interested in skewing facts and figures to scare us into drastic action. I believe that a far more effective campaign would understand the reasoning of air travel and say “ok, you want to travel by plane that’s fair enough. But how about trying to offset your omissions by contributing a donation towards offsetting activities.” This campaign hasn’t been flighted for too long and has already come under heavy criticism, I understand that this is most probably what they wanted but I really don’t think that this has worked on this occasion and it would be interesting to see what others think.
