Social Ad Campaigns are, in my opinion, some of the best ads out there because they are often provocative and controversial. They often entail out of the box thinking, i.e. the message goes beyond TV, Billboard or Mailers and some are nothing but brilliant.
And if they are executed in any of the following traditional formats, it takes the campaign to a whole other level. Below are some I’ve come across and often take great enjoyment in the level of genius put into them.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Kolkata, India

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Lisbon, Portugal

Advertising Agency: Casanova Pendrill, NY, USA

Advertising Agency: Jung von Matt, Hamburg, Germany

Fundraising to support the war victims of Georgia

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy, Stockholm, Sweden

Advertising Agency: BIG ANT INTERNATIONAL New York, USA

Campaign against violence and child sexual abuse. Stay on our side. Report it.

Provoking street campaign which can be seen right now in Melbourne for the Australian Childhood Foundation. For their ongoing campaign Stop Child Abuse Now they used child size mannequins to represent children suffering neglect. The mannequins were placed in high traffic locations around the city and then a billposter was pasted over the top of the figure so only the feet and legs could be seen. Words on the poster read, “Neglected Children are made to feel invisible.”

Advertising Agency: JWT, Melbourne, Australia

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Frankfurt, Germany

Advertising Agency: Duval Guillaume, Antwerp, Belgium

Advertising Agency: Taivas, Helsinki, Finland

Advertising Agency: Jung von Matt/Alster, Germany

Advertising Agency: JWT, Mumbai, India

Advertising Agency: Six Inches Communication, Mumbai, India

Advertising Agency: Tribal DDB, Hamburg, Germany

Advertising Agency: JWT, Hong Kong

The Sharkproject is an initiative to raise awareness about the threat of shark extinction, centered on “finning” – a practice in which the shark is caught, their fins cut off and the rest of the animal thrown back to the sea. This mailing is printed on rough paper similar to a shark’s skin and tells the recipient where to cut the envelope open, revealing a bloody shark fin stump.

Advertising Agency: Y&R, Frankfurt, Germany

Advertising Agency: Rethink Communications, Vancouver, Canada

The water in the money collection boxes gets closer to the young boy as more money is dropped into the container.

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Singapore

Agency: TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Advertising Agency: Grey, Hong Kong

A new medium called adbins for Quit, the stop smoking charity, shows a set of lungs, transparent in the middle so you can see all the discarded cigarette ends inside the bin.

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, London, United Kingdom

Advertising Agency: DDB/Key People, Colombia

February 4th is March Against the Terrorist Organization FARC. We took the bus stop posters and chained three (3) iconic characters of the Colombian conflict posing as hostages. A woman who reminisced Ingrid Betancourt (hostage for nine years now), a policeman and a farmer, all tied to the posters that held a message as follows: “Since you can do it, go out and march against FARC.”

Advertising Agency: Sancho BBDO, Colombia

In order to create an awareness about the animal extinction led by humans persecution over 500 years. This stunt was based on one simple question: What if it was the other way around? This resulted in transforming a subway passageway into an animal shooting range. Only, this time the animals had the guns. Each gun was equipped with an infrared sensor that triggered the sound of gunfire as someone walked by.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy, Beijing, China