Robert Hargrove

If you have some advertising and marketing skills and want to make a difference you may want to contact Maurice Levy, chief executive of Publicis Group, an advertising agency based in Paris. (http://www.publicis.com/corporate/en/).

Levy saw the handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, the recently elected president of the Palestinian Authority as a great opportunity to make a difference—using the skills of an advertising agency to develop a marketing campaign based on the idea of peace. Says Levy, "the hardliners on both sides have been much more effective at marketing than the peacemakers as all the bloodshed of the past four years tells us.” The campaign which would involve multi-media approach on tv, radio and newspapers would run simultaneously in Hebrew and Arabic. “We can’t do a lot on the political and diplomatic side but one thing people in communications can do is help people on different sides of the fence understand each other better.

While cautious that his idea could turn out to be just another false start, Levy says the outlook of the campaign has brightened from a year ago when he started discussing the campaign with public funding agencies, and Arafat was hiding in a bunker, under siege by Israeli forces. Now things have improved, he said, with a “dramatic shift in the ambience.” What do you think of this idea? Let me know!