Despite being the most obvious example of urban human tragedy, too often they just blend in to the landscape. Homelessness is a problem facing most modern cities and Amsterdam is no exception.
To help raise money and awareness for BADT, a local foundation to help the city’s most needy, agency JWT Amsterdam created a campaign that actually put more homeless people on the street. Well, sort of. They took mannequins, dressed them up shabbily and put a piggy-bank slot in their heads for donations.
The mannequins were placed around the city–sleeping on park benches, under bridges–asking passersby, via signs, for a contribution. In addition to creating more opportunities to give, the inanimate homeless also perhaps removed the discomfort barrier to giving–for some people, maybe it’s easier to put a coin in a slot than interact with someone down on his luck. It’s a creative idea to a common problem, but also surprising no one on the film was a bit creeped out by the corpse-like dude lying there with a hole hacksawed into his forehead.
