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Sir Frank Lowe, the British advertising supremo, said in 1987: "I've always had a passionate belief that advertising should be a force for good and that it should enrich the environment and not impoverish it."
It is a pertinent quote for the challenge being laid down by the Financial Times (FT) on the occasion of its launching The World's Toughest Briefs, a new competition for creative talent.
In conjunction with OpenAd.net, an online marketplace for exchanging original advertising ideas, FT will be publishing a challenging advertising brief each month and inviting readers to submit a solution.
The entries will be judged by a group of industry experts and the results and winner will be published each month on FT's Creative Business pages.
In line with Sir Frank's conviction, the first brief is to create a promotional idea for Make Poverty History, the campaign that brings together more than 300 charities, trade unions, faith groups and celebrities with the aim of generating awareness of global poverty and encouraging ordinary people to show their commitment to ending it.
Make Poverty History is geared towards influencing decisions to be made at this year's Group of Eight (G8) summit of leaders from the most industrialised nations in July. It is a three-pronged effort to reform the global trade system, eliminate third-world debt and encourage more and better aid.
The campaign has already been brought to the public's attention by Comic Relief and appeals by Nelson Mandela and Bono. The brief to promote Make Poverty History is challenging because it does not involve asking people to part with money, but instead to lend and register their support for the campaign.
Adrian Lovett, of the charity Oxfam and one of the co-ordinators of the campaign, explains the scale of the task: "Not only do we need to persuade policy makers but we need to build and sustain a level of public passion for this on par with support for the National Health Service."
Entries should encourage people to log on to the Make Poverty History website to register their support, put pressure on the government and wear the white band that has become the campaign's symbol.
While members of the Make Poverty History coalition have previously embarked on separate initiatives and events for each of the three strands of the campaign, they are now asking for the strands to be tied.
As well as being published in the Financial Times, the co-ordinators hope the winning entry will form part of the campaign. Make Poverty History has already been given advertising space by the media industry to be used during the coming months.
For the launch competition, Richard Curtis, vice-chairman of Comic Relief and the writer of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, will join the advertising and marketing experts on FT's regular judging panel.
Curtis has taken a year off film work to campaign for Make Poverty History. "I believe that it's time to say enough is enough," says Curtis. "Thanks to a series of landmark meetings with world leaders and a real understanding of how to stop the extremes of world poverty, this year could be the year when it's nailed once and for all."
Other judges include:
* Polly Cochrane, director of marketing, Channel 4.
* Greg Delaney, chairman of Delaney, Lund, Knox Warren & Partners.
* Gill Hart, marketing director, Financial Times.
* Amanda Mackenzie, vice-president of marketing for EMEA at HewlettPackard's customer solutions group.
* Peter Souter, executive creative director of AMV BBDO.
* Dianne Thompson, chief executive of Camelot Group.
The competition is open to all, from enthusiastic amateurs to established freelance creatives and agencies. While the adjacent article explores how the selection of an advertising agency often involves 'Issues that go beyond a particular creative idea, companies such as OpenAd.net are trying to place ideas at the heart of the process and break down barriers for creatives. The operation gives them a platform on which to display their unbranded and unpublished work.
Katja Sköberne, managing partner at OpenAd.net, says: "This is a great opportunity for us to encourage the freethinking, creative approach that underlies the OpenAd.net philosophy. The competition will enable the best creative brains to provide solutions to the hardest advertising briefs while gaining exposure among a savvy, commercially minded audience."
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