New U.N. Ad Campaign Pokes Fun at Unpaid Parking Tickets
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations yesterday launched a $425,000 citywide advertising campaign with the motto “Everyone Is a Delegate,” which imagines the intelligence of the average New Yorker comparable to that of a beauty pageant contestant.
In five television ads, which are the centerpiece of the campaign, actors portraying “true New Yorkers” address the U.N. General Assembly, telling world leaders that they have heard that there is poverty, hunger, and disease in the world. The characters – who hail from Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Astoria – then proceed to remark on a delegate’s attire and suggest that U.N. diplomats should pay their parking tickets.
“To be honest, I haven’t really heard of a lot of the countries that are represented here today,” a character named Jeremy Kressner, who is meant to hail from the Bronx and appears dressed in a blue work shirt, tells delegates. “Uh, but I think that since we are all together in one room, we can do some great things, like guarantee human rights. And I can help. Pretty good at doing spreadsheets, if that’s useful. All right, thanks.” After the delegates applaud his simple wisdom, he briefly returns to the microphone, and exhorts, “Go Yankees.”
Other characters address Turtle Bay’s successes in the world, while adding local color. A character named Larry Kushner asks that the delegates not use Second Avenue, so as to avoid “messing up my commute.” Curiously, the commuter is “from Manhattan.”
The campaign was conceived by a British subsidiary of the New York-based McCann WorldGroup, Mc-Cann Erickson, for next week’s summit of more than 175 prime ministers, presidents, sheiks, and kings. The event is expected to create a lot of headaches for New Yorkers. According to the U.N. undersecretary-general for communications and public information, Shashi Tharoor, the ads were designed to explain to the locals that they have a stake in the summit, even as they suffer through a week of inconveniences from security checks to traffic.
“The U.N. wants to show its appreciation to the people of this great city and thank them in advance for their patience and understanding,” Mr. Tharoor said at a press conference launching the ad campaign yesterday, adding, “The campaign is inspired by the warmth and humor of New Yorkers themselves.”
He said the campaign that makes light of unpaid traffic tickets was envisioned months before it was known that on the day of its launch, a U.N.-commissioned investigating team headed by Paul Volcker would conclude that Turtle Bay has allowed “illicit, unethical, and corrupt behavior,” in its oil-for-food program.
Mr. Tharoor said that since many participants, including the ad agency, donated their time and efforts, and since some of the television stations, such as Channel 13 and New York 1, will run the ads for free, the cost of the campaign remained relatively low. The United Nations and a Washington-based fund created by Ted Turner, the United Nations Foundation, paid $425,000 for the campaign, Mr. Tharoor said, while the true market value adds up to several million dollars. In addition to the television spots, 60 ads will be displayed in all three major airports, 250 in the railways stations, and 1,000 on buses and bus stops.