NSPCC | CARTOON | 2002
Real children don't bounce back / NSPCC "CARTOON"
A boy who looks like he stepped out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon gets hit by his father. Burned with a cigarette. Pushed down the stairs. A laugh track plays, and because he's a cartoon, he bounces right back. But in the final moment, the boy turns into a real child, and he doesn't move.
The problem
Public service ads about the reality of child abuse have always run into the wall of regulation. Showing real violence as it actually happens doesn't get past the censors. NSPCC was caught in the gap between the violence they needed to show and what was allowed to be shown.
The insight
Dave Droga at Saatchi & Saatchi found a way around it: turn the child into a cartoon. Make him someone you can laugh at getting hurt, and you step outside the rules. Then, in the moment he turns into a real child, the audience suddenly realizes what they'd been laughing at.
The idea
A real, live-action father hurts a cartoon boy. The boy tumbles and bounces back Tom-and-Jerry style, with a canned laugh track playing. Only at the moment he's pushed down the stairs does the image switch to reality, and the boy lies motionless on the floor. The tagline: "Real children don't bounce back."
What happened
The ad won multiple awards, including Cannes Lions. It was given an 18 certificate and received 127 complaints. It was not banned from television.
Afterthought
Cartoons are funny because they bounce back. Real children don't. That simple point was delivered through animation, working from inside the very regulations that stood in its way. 20 years on, that single turning-point moment still hasn't lost its power.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2002
