WWF ’9/11′ Ad Was Not a “Rejected Spec Ad” – Shocking Video Uncovered

On Tuesday, Mediaite reported that the World Wildlife Fund denied responsibility for an offensive ad that featured an image of multiple planes headed for the Twin Towers.

Now, Ad Age is reporting that WWF has revealed that although the ad was created on spec, it was run once in a local Brazilian newspaper:

Sergio Valente, president of DDB Brasil, said the ad was presented to the WWF in Brazil in December 2008 and approved; it then ran once in a small local paper.

“When I saw it, I said, ‘Stop running that ad,’” Mr. Valente said.

The ad agency, DDB Brasil, is denying responsibility for a video version of the ad that’s making the rounds. This denial is a little hard to swallow, since the video’s intro features a title card with DDB Brasil’s name on it, along with a date in June. That’s an awful lot of trouble to go through to frame a company for producing a video ad that it admits to doing a print version of.

Here’s the very disturbing video:

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