“Never let their toys die” state the four announcements from the campaign awarded with the 2008 Cannes Festival Press Grand Prix. One work that will most certainly be part of the competition’s history as one of the most memorable in the advertisement world. Why? The four pieces’ images, in all their details, speak for themselves, demanding no more than the phrase “the world’s longest lasting battery” in order to promote the product’s features and basic function, as they are the most ordinary pieces of an advertisement campaign nowadays. Because these four images go way beyond the client’s briefing, whose concern is, as usual, the increase in market share.

South Africa DDB and Energizer professionals seem to have established, in a way, a complicity that destroys the barriers of mediocrity and fear of going ahead in this absolutely relevant campaign, in context and means of divulgation, contributing to the awakening of a humanitarian conscience at a young age in which the character is only a seed, and therefore, needs watering to strengthen its roots, other than growing up with its vigor compromised by parental negligence.

An incredible fact remains as most announcers and advertisers still haven’t realized that, in order to speak “Good” of themselves – or a product or service – in this uneasy world in which we live in, nothing more convenient than simply speak the Good. Obviously to speak or propagate the Good is not a task to be demanded from an advertisement work, many of which receive millions of Dollars or Euros of investment with the intention of defending market leaderships, nevertheless, will the desired effects continue to be reached exclusively by technological novelties, or by a language that favors inclusion into the target means, or by the ready or unexpected joke? In case announcers and advertisers are taken by the slightest doubt as they wonder about this question, it’s because sensitive people’s feeling is waving clearly with signs of alert that everything is changing much faster than it has ever before in mankind’s history, a reason for which there may not be time to think too much about the answer, and thus, action is needed.

Acting for the good, when a brand, product or service believe that it’s possible to “speak” the good instead of dwelling in the ordinary place of those who only speak Good about themselves, expecting that their message will be reproduced by opinion makers in enough width so that the target market will be kept receptive and loyal.

Two blonde girls spit on someone passing by bellow, in any ordinary street in South Africa. A little blond boy thinks about painting red his little pet dog that, just like him, needs loving and motherly care to live. A blond little boy puts his little blonde friend’s life in danger in an amusement park. And yet another little blond boy shows his little friend the penis that differs himself from the feminine innocence that could one day become a castration complex. So many ideas come forward in glimpse of four simple advertising pieces, that have as primary objective reminding the consumer that Energizer batteries can’t be absent in South Africans homes. Just as well as someone who educate and give today’s children conscience – not only in South Africa – so that tomorrow’s adults won’t be prejudice, evil, and be able to respect their kin regardless of gender and sexual preference, and feel sincere affection towards nature and animals.

This 2008 Cannes Festival Grand Prix, deserves truly and in all manners, the Grand Prix it has been awarded. More than that, this Grand Prix is fundamental for advertisers and announcers not let the advertising die.