David Buenos Aires and Ogilvy & Mather London teamed up to create “Farewell to the Forest,” a one minute ad calling attention the issue of deforestation for Unilever which arrives ahead of the upcoming United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris.
As a company, Unilever has been far from innocent in the deforestation crisis, but has recently pledged “to source 100% of their agricultural raw materials sustainably and halve the environmental footprint of the making and use of their products by 2020.” The company is also calling on people to show support for its “Bright Future” initiative in partnership with WWF to “help protect one million trees in two of the most threatened forest areas in the world, Brazil and Indonesia.”
In “Farewell to the Forest,” David Buenos Aires and Ogilvy & Mather London bring the problem of deforestation to life, posing the question, “Is a tree safer in the city than in the rainforest?” The spot opens by informing viewers that “36 football fields of forest are destroyed every minute” before showing a tree uprooting itself and journeying from the rainforest to a crowded city. This tree then narrates the remainder of the ad, saying, “You are the only living being that can help, and seeing your faces, I now know that you will.” The tree’s faith in humanity may be a bit confusing, and misplaced, given that we’re the cause of deforestation in the first place.
Beyond its basic message on deforestation, the spot also serves to promote Unilever, ending with the message, “At Unilever we are committed to making our products sustainably without harming our forests.” Some may find that statement misleading greenwashing, given that by its own estimation the company’s practices are not yet 100 percent sustainable and won’t be for up to five years (although it did fast-track its pledge to sustainably source its wood-based packaging to the end of this year). There’s also the question of who is defining “sustainable,” as the International Labor Rights Forum found in November 2013 that the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, which Unilever helped found, identified sources as sustainable which included “flagrant disregard for human rights.” So Unilever still has a lot of work to do to prove it can be trustworthy in regards to where it sources raw materials, as nice as its promises of future sustainability might sound.
Credits:
Agency: DAVID Buenos Aires/Ogilvy & Mather
DAVID ECDs: Joaquin Cubria, Ignacio Ferioli
O&M Global ECD: André Laurentino
CDs: Federico Plaza Montero, Nicolás Zarlenga
Creative Team: Arthur Amorim Monteiro
Head of Global Production: Veronica Beach
Executive Producer: Brenda Morrison Fell
Business Affairs: Karen Roche
Managing Partner: Eva Rausch
Business Director: Marine Lacoudrée
Account Directors: Lucila Mengide, Gemma Thompson
Account Supervisor: Gerard Duran
Account Executives: Yanina Perez, Sejal Jain
Planning Partner: Jodi Shelley
Client:
Global Unilever Brand
Keith Weed – Marc Mathieu- Walter Susini- Paul Nevett – Bogdana Ghinescu – Yasmin Kathoria – Ines Freitas – Sergio del Prado – Veronica Burg – Kathryn Mackey
Production Company: PRIMO
Director: Nico Perez Veiga
Executive Producer: Gaby Carcova
Line Producer: Sofia Ruival
Director of Photography: Lol Crawley
UK Production: Pulse Films
Executive Producer: James Sorton
Line Producer: Shirley O’Connor
Line Producer: Debbie Ninnis
Production Manager: Ash Lockmun
Production Assistant: India Bradshaw
1st AD: Jez Oakley
TREE DESIGNERS: MILLENIUM FX
Managing Director: Rob Mayor
SFX Producer: Karen Spencer
MFX Tree SV: Fiona Cazaly
MFX Tree SV: Charlie Bluett
MFX Performer: Liam Cooke
MFX Performer: Ben Cooke
MFX Technician: Natalie Elner
Editorial Company: Final Cut
Executive Producer: Michelle Corney
Editor: Ashley Kraemer
Assistant Editor: Mike Radforth
Online: The Mill
Producer: Amy Cooper
Production Assistant: Elena Pagliei
Colorist: Mick Vincent
Online Lead: David Wishart
Audio House: Final Cut
Executive Producer: Michelle Corney
Mixer: Patch Rowland
Mix Assistant: Fred Pearson
Music
Composer: Aquilo
Music Supervisor: Big Sync Music