Like cancer, corruption spreads quickly and always seems impossible to cure. It drains economies, costs jobs, breaks down the human spirit and, if we don’t take a stand and fight it, it soon becomes the norm.
Every time we lose a battle against a crime like corruption, we lose a battle for human values like justice, truth, loyalty and trust.
In South Africa, an astonishing 5% of the national GDP is lost to corruption every year. A Cape Town-based NGO, ODAC (Open Democratic Advice Centre) has identified that this will continue as long as employees in corrupt environments are intimidated by the perpetrators of the corruption (mostly senior management officials), and are afraid to speak out because they may lose their jobs or face victimisation in one form or another.
 Let’s face it, corruption and the abuse of power comes pretty damn close to a crime against humanity and it should be the right of every citizen who encounters it to expose it when and wherever it occurs. To this end, ODAC created a tailor-made, whistle-blowing policy for large corporates and organisations.
The nature of the crime means that the programme could only be discussed and implemented with the co-operation of top decision-makers like CEOs.
After numerous attempts to reach them through normal channels, ODAC decided to find a more creative route to pin down these very busy executives.
Art Director Andrew Lang and Copywriter James Armstrong of Cape Town advertising agency, The Jupiter Drawing Room, took the bull by more than its horns and proved that an insightful creative idea which dramatically brings the issue to life and gives you a short, sharp slap in the face can be a powerful persuader.
Their idea was to repaint classic nude paintings and replace the heads with those of world famous, top South African CEOs, such as Whitey Basson of Shoprite, Cynthia Carol of Anglo American and Brian Joffe of The Bidvest Group. The paintings were then hand delivered to them, with a message relating the feeling of being exposed in art to that of their companies being exposed in the media for improprieties.
Receiving a nude painting of yourself was sure to stir a response. From a previous call-back rate of 3%, ODAC suddenly achieved 60% as a result of the campaign.
By the end of 2012, the team envisages sending paintings to the top 20 CEOs in South Africa and the country will have gone some way towards effectively cracking down on white-collar crime.
There are many cases where powerful creative ideas have brought about positive change in combating dishonest, dangerous and irresponsible behaviour. Alcohol abuse, child abuse, drug abuse, littering and HIV/Aids are a few worth mentioning. Why did these campaigns work where other efforts failed? The answer is simple; they worked because they were insightful, relevant, engaging and persuasive. If an idea doesn’t address the issue head-on and meets all four criteria then it is doomed to fail. You simply cannot soft-peddle solutions to behaviour that has so little respect for the well-being of society and human values.
(The writer is an Executive Creative Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Sri Lanka and occasionally contributes on creativity issues).
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