BUZZ NEWS

Humanitarian Lion: First World Virgins

1 comment

Posted on January 6, 2009
Jessica Hartstein

A few weeks ago, we spoke to you about Burger King’s new campaign to bring the Whopper where it has never gone before: Whopper Virgins (read article here). The aim of the campaign is to carry out completely unbiased taste tests, offering remote villagers the chance to try the Whopper and the Big Mac and tell the world’s hamburger consumers which one they liked best. The idea is that since these remote villagers haven’t been exposed to McDonald’s or Burger King advertising, it will be the world’s purest taste test. Here’s a teaser video:

As you can probably imagine, it has been a rather controversial initiative, being scorned by some for being the epitome of everything that is wrong with globalization and being hailed by others as pure entertainment.

It didn’t take long for someone to jump on the opportunity to make a spoof in order to promote a humanitarian message. The new UGC video made by a Humanitarian Lion supporter plays on the “virgins” part of Whopper Virgins and shows us images of a Perrier Virgin pulling her water out of a well with a bucket, a Nike Virgin in worn-down sandals, a Human Rights Virgin rocking back and forth in the corner of a cell, a Bus Virgin walking, etc. The video then reminds us that millions of people cannot enjoy the world and asks us to help them by joining the Humanitarian Lion effort. Check out the Humanitarian Lion Virgins video:

The Humanitarian Lion is run by a group that wants the Cannes Lion Festival, the most famous ad festival in the world, to include a Humanitarian Lion category. The idea is to get the brilliant minds that create the world’s best ads to also create brilliant ideas to make the world better. The Cannes Lion Festival clients sponsoring the Humanitarian Lion would then invest in the best and brightest idea and improve the lives of people around the world. The group behind the effort would like to make a submission to the Humanitarian Lion category a pre-requisite for entry to any other of the festival’s categories, and make the award the most valuable award in the festival, giving the winning agency 13 points. See the intro video:

The Virgins video for humanitarianlion.com succeeds at reminding us of the problems people around the world face and motivates us to ask more, get involved, and head to the Humanitarian Lion website, where we can sign a petition to get the category included. Also, visitors are asked to create their own UGC video for the cause. Good luck! We hope to see this category added soon!