Advertisers Without Borders (AWB), founded in 2002 by Guillermo Caro, is an international network of advertising professionals who donate their time to promote global social causes. Through innovative public service campaigns, AWB brings awareness to issues like poverty, health, environmental care, and peace culture.

One of their recent campaigns, The Children Notwork, was designed to create awareness about global child labor. AWB created profiles on the professional network LinkedIn for textile, coffee, toy, and food companies. It then created dozens of fictitious profiles of children who supposedly worked for those companies. The “children” began to send direct messages to random LinkedIn professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders on the website. If these messages were read, AWB provided the recipient with a link to The Children Notwork website and detailed information about child labor.

This innovative campaign spurred conversation across the world, finally meeting AWB’s objective to create awareness about the 215 million children who are victims of exploitation and child labor.

Another of AWB’s campaigns, Whatever you do to the world you do to yourself, is composed of a series of four ads to promote greater care for the environment. The four images mirror each other in design, but depict four different issues, namely deforestation, littering, whale poaching, and pollution. Each ad contains a self-inflicted environmental wrong and the connection to the arm that commits it.

Each of AWB’s campaigns is designed to get the public engaged in the world’s issues through innovative, thought-provoking advertising techniques. Said best by anthropologist Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” Advertisers Without Borders is doing just that.

– Tara Young

Sources: Advertisers Without Borders, The Children Notwork, The CreTimes