Highlighters vs Blacking out text.

Remember the Luxor Highlighters campaign from Leo Burnett Mumbai? Yes, it even won a nice shiny Gold Lion at the Cannes awards in press. Well, there's another campaign out there depicting dictators on newsprint, albeit doing the opposite, blacking out instead of highlighting. I just found the visual similarity amusing.

The Reporters Without Borders comes from all the way across the world, created by McCann Erickson, Geneva, Switzerland and was released in May 2008 so I think it's a case of brainsyncs. Instead of high-lighting a story like the Cannes winner did, the Reporters without borders shhows blacked out portraits of Castro, Ahmadinejad, Hu Jintao and Putin - as these are leaders who have imprisoned reporters for writing. The blacked out lines are a visual reminder of classic censorship that has been practiced by many states in the past. During world war two, even British soldiers had their letters letters censored with a black marker crossing out anything which might compromise operational secrecy before the letter was sent.

Creative Director: Timo Kirez
Art Director / Illustrator: Angelo Sciullo
Copywriters: David von Ritter, Chantal Panozzo