War Child U.K. Campaign Compares Real Life to Violent Video Games

By Patrick Coffee 

Here’s an interesting one created by London-based agency TOAD. (period included, thanks) for War Child, a U.K. charity dedicated to helping young children in areas subject to armed conflict and its equally horrific aftermath.

The campaign plays directly on 72andSunny-helmed ads for Call of Duty, portraying the reality of life in a war zone as a sharp contrast to games played in the comfort of one’s own apartment/dingy basement/mental health facility.

As the accompanying release explains, the ad “subverts” first-person shooters by telling the “story” through the eyes of a 9-year-old caught in a war zone.

The work is, frankly, both terrifying and accurate in its recreation of the CoD-style shooter experience, right down to the background music.

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The release tells us that the horrific scenes you just witnessed are “drawn from real-life testimonies” by children living in war zones across the Middle East and Africa, and the seriousness of this situation is reinforced by the fact that “only 3 percent of humanitarian funding is spent on children in war zones” though they make up “more than 50 percent of the [affected] population.”

Here’s the link to sign a related petition calling on U.K. Secretary of State Justine Greening to “commit the U.K. government to prioritizing the protection of children” at the first World Humanitarian Summit set for early 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Credits:

Advertising Agency: TOAD.

Creative Directors: Guy Davidson, Daniel Clarke, Heydon Prowse
Production company: Mother’s Best Child
Director: Daniel Lucchesi
Co-Director: Heydon Prowse
Editor: Elliot Windsor
Producer: Heydon Prowse & Guy Davidson
Post Production Coordinator: John Thompson
SFX Producer: Andy Ryder
Colourist: Jack McGinity (Time Based Arts)
Post-production: H & M Ogilvy One
Audio: Liam Conwell
Music: Jamie Perera

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