AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL | FREEDOM CANDLES | 2014
A Candle That Reveals a Person Hidden Inside as It Burns / AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL "FREEDOM CANDLES"
It looks like an ordinary candle, but keep it burning and a small human figure starts to appear from within. The outside is shaped like a person, and as the wax melts away, another figure that was trapped inside is slowly revealed.
The problem
Amnesty International needed to draw attention to people around the world who are unjustly imprisoned or detained—an issue that easily gets forgotten in everyday life.
The insight
The strongest way to make an "invisible" problem visible is to let the object itself tell the story. The core idea was to flip the nature of a candle, something that burns and disappears, so that burning it actually reveals something instead.
The idea
The outside of the candle was shaped like a wax figure of an ordinary person. As it burned down, another figure hidden inside—suggesting someone held captive—gradually came into view. COARSE produced the candles, and they were actually sold at auction on eBay.
What happened
The campaign won Gold at Cannes Lions.
Afterthought
Burning the candle becomes an act of discovery rather than destruction. There's something meaningful in the fact that only the buyer gets to witness that moment. It's nice that even though this was an ad, it stayed something you could hold in your hands.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2014
