When you want something done in your office, like fixing a broken chair, how do you go about it? Do you go to the administrator responsible and ask nicely? Or do you create a giant mask of the administrator, distort their features to make them look grotesque, and then hold a PR opportunity outside their office yelling that they are gambling recklessly with your work-space like pimps on a night out in Vegas?
I may be in the minority here, but I tend to go for the asking nicely approach. Not so, one imagines, the advocacy team at Oxfam. Or at least not if their approach to influencing the G8 leaders currently meeting in Deauville is any guide:
Veteran G8 campaigners, Oxfam, have kicked off the G8 Summit week by rolling out their famous G8 big heads for a game of bluff to demand the G8 recommit to Muskoka, L’Aquilla and Gleneagles Commitments.
Take a look at the picture above. What is all this meant to achieve?
The message for the G8 from the Big Heads for this photo shoot is: “Will they bluff on aid commitments this year? Oxfam is calling on them to reaffirm their Gleneagles, L’Aquila and Muskoka commitments, and setting out an emergency plan to deliver the overall shortfall in aid promised of $19 billion.”
Uh-huh? My guess is that the message that most G8 leaders actually take away from this sort of thing – if their aides even let them see the pictures – is a bit more like this:
Who are these twerps? Why have they made me look like a pimp? Can’t someone arrest them? Now can we return to the serious business of talking about Carla’s baby bump?
But you never know, anything’s worth a try, I suppose.
