BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — A campaign to create awareness in Argentina about the 1994 attack against the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires won two awards at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
"Silhouettes of Memory” — the installation of 30 human-size figures with the facial images of the bombing victims in places throughout Buenos Aires where they were traveling before arriving at the AMIA center on the day of the attack — earned two Lion awards at the weeklong event for international advertisers.
The installation was made for the July 18, 2010 memorial on the 16th anniversary of the bombing, which killed 85 and wounded hundreds.
"Silhouettes of Memory" won a Silver Lion in the category Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages, and also a Bronze Lion in Best Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale. The festival ended June 25.
“These two lions are a reward for the creativity and also the production of a great idea, but also is recognition of the intense fighting for memory,” Gaston Bigio, general creative director of Ogilvy Argentina, which created the pro bono campaign, told JTA.
More than 24,000 entries from all over the advertising world were showcased and judged at the festival, according to the festival website.
Ogilvy, an international advertising, marketing and public relations agency, said in a letter of presentation to Cannes that its campaign aimed to “make the entire Argentina society understand that it was a terrorist attack against Argentina.”
“We created an action locating physical figures of the victims in the exact spots they were minutes before they lost their lives — in the same streets where thousands of Argentines walked every day,” the agency said.
The campaign received widespread publicity in the Argentina media.
"These awards are the most important international recognition in the world of communication," the AMIA said in a statement. "Our objective is to keep the issue alive despite the passage of time and to demand justice.”
No perpetators of the attack have been brought to justice.
