Today's Break: Christmas lights in the Jungle
Friends,
The nation of Columbia has been home to one of the longest-standing guerrilla warfare conflicts in the world. For over 50 years, the FARC guerrillas have been wreaking havoc throughout the nation.
In 2006, Jose Miguel Sokoloff was hired by the government of Columbia to develop an advertising campaign to convince FARC guerrillas to leave their life as soldiers.
The earliest campaigns were not entirely useless, but they were not as effective as Jose, or Columbia, had hoped.
In 2010, Jose and his team learned something that would forever change the way they approached their demobilization campaign: it turns out that more guerrillas left FARC in December than in any other month.
Without knowing exactly why this was the case, Jose and his team came up with one of the most brilliant advertising campaigns that most of us have never heard of:
The plan was to bring thousands of Christmas lights into the jungle to light up nine strategically-located trees. Each of these trees had a small sign beside them, one that would only light up if a guerrilla were to walk past it.
And on these signs was a message whose origins can be heard ringing throughout the entire New Testament.
What was that message?
“If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home.”
It is not Christmas, but I was recently reminded of this fascinating story of the world of advertising unknowingly channeling the beauty of the Incarnation.
I thought you might enjoy it, too.
Want a longer break?
Watch Jose Sokoloff's TED talk here, or listen to the This American Life episode about that campaign here.