Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF): Boy

Medécins Sans Frontières continually deliver humanitarian aid around the world under the most difficult and dangerous circumstances. The brief for McCann Erickson London was to communicate the challenges facing their aid work in a way that avoided the problem of 'charity fatigue': immunity to the conventions of charity advertising. These are typified by gratuitously shocking images that depict the suffering of innocent victims.
The ad features a locked-off shot of a bullet-ridden building in a deserted environment. The starkness of the visual setting is countered by the harrowing audio as the viewer hears a traumatized young boy receiving treatment from an MSF doctor. The story’s context is relayed solely by supers, thus encouraging the viewer to visualize the events for themselves before drawing their attention to the appeal.