BBDO’s hairy nose campaign promotes clean air

BBDO has launched a campaign for Clean Air Asia to highlight humorously that urban populations should not adapt to worsening air quality but actually do something about it.

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The idea revolves around a famous hair sculptor who can create masterpieces from unsightly nasal hair; the link being that only by growing more hair in our noses can we expect to filter the increasing amount of pollution in our urban environments.

Interestingly, the initial brief had been issued as part of BBDO’s “Rising Lions” creative training programme in Singapore where the basic idea was first produced. The purpose of this programme was to allow the senior members of BBDO’s Creative Council to mentor the brightest young talent from across the region. Representatives from China, India, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines all participated in the development of the early insights.

This was then developed by the BBDO team in the Philippines, under the guidance of David Guerrero, based in Manila into the final multi-media campaign.

BBDO Guerrero was also responsible for rebranding the organization and redesigning the logo to create a longer-term and more future-facing vision for the clean air initiative.

“People look at air pollution like the weather. You complain about it but you cannot solve it”, said Sophie Punte, Executive Director of Clean Air Asia. “We see that people start wearing masks or buy air filters for their houses and cars, and move away from heavily polluted areas if they can afford it, in short they are adapting to air pollution rather than doing something about it. We see that there is increasing political will in Asia to address air pollution but without broad based popular support such political will can not succeed”.

Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of BBDO Guerrero|Proximity Philippines, David Guerrero, says, “We were excited to partner with Clean Air Asia on this issue because air pollution touches all of us every day in our daily lives. We decided to use humor to explain to people across the region that there is no need to feel jaded or powerless.”

The Hairy Nose campaign will be launched at the three-day Better Air Quality (BAQ) 2012 conference, organized by Clean Air Asia, the Hong Kong SAR Environmental Protection Department and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which will kick off on December 5, 2012 in Hong Kong. The campaign which consists of a online video, a micro website where people can check pollution levels in their city and select their own nose hair styles will be rolled out after BAQ 2012 to a number of Asian countries where Clean Air Asia has regional offices and networks including China, India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Vietnam.

Chris Thomas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BBDO Asia, says, “It is a real testament to the strength of our talent development programme that something so imaginative can come out of the meeting of our network’s very best talents from both ends of the experience scale”.

Credits – Executive Creative Director: David Guerrero (BBDO Guerrero)