Innocent-Seeming Ad Is Really A Disturbing PSA About Problematic Child Marriage
Video screenshot via PKBI
This seemingly innocuous commercial of a young girl jumping on a bed is grimmer than it appears to be.
The viewer is greeted with a visual of a girl hopping on a bed, and hears her panting amid creaking bed springs, in the spot presented by advertising agency M&C Saatchi for the Indonesian Family Planning Association (PKBI), a non-governmental organization advocating access to health resources for women and fighting against child marriage.
All seems well and good, until the viewer is prompted to close their eyes. With their sight closed off, the scene takes a darker turn.
A voice can be heard saying, “More than three million children are forced into adulthood before they turn 15. Open your eyes.”
Anish Daryani, CEO of M&C Saatchi Indonesia, shared in a press statement via Ad Age that as people’s eyes are often “closed to the issue,” they are perhaps unaware that they could be “changing a child’s life for the worse.”
“Hence, we ask people to open their eyes to injustice happening to the girl… which is hidden in plain sight.”
The campaign, displayed through social media and out-of-home locations, was accompanied with a “#StopChildMarriage” hashtag, and followed after the Indonesian Parliament raised the legal consent for marriage from 16 to 19 in September last year.
[via Ad Age, video and cover image via PKBI]
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