1.07.2009

"You show us there was never a wrong time to have you. Only a right one."


At Letchworth State Park in New York

("You are Germany") was a social marketing campaign in Germany. Its aim was to achieve positive thinking and a new national feeling. It was created by the initiative "Partner für Innovation" consisting of 25 media corporations and was co-ordinated by Bertelsmann. The large-scale campaign caused much controversy and discussion.
The second campaign seems to encourage to procreate:
In 2007 the campaign appeals for more child friendliness in the German society because of the steadily falling birth rate in Germany. In the manifesto this becomes clear especially by the last verses: “Wir brauchen mehr von deiner Sorte, weil ohne dich die Gegenwart keinen Spaß bringt und die Zukunft bereits vergangen ist. Du bist Deutschland.” (We need more of your kind because without you the present brings no fun and the future has already passed. You are Germany.)
Here is the ad with English subtitles:


At 1:17 into the ad, there is this line:  "You show us there was never a wrong time to have you.  Only a right one."  

It almost seems as if the leadership of "Partner für Innovation" immediately responded to pages 109-110 of America Alone (2006), in which Mark Steyn dismissed its first campaign, by producing in 2007 this second, more controversial campaign which actually encourages Germans to value and have children.  I wonder if the political and business leadership of Europe is secretly reading Steyn...

Servus!



3 comments:

Erich Heidenreich, DDS said...

The most important words I heard were: "You show us that it is never the wrong time to receive you."

Thanks for the info, Rob. Too bad the U.S. doesn't have people willing to put together and pay for a campaign like this.

Rob Olson said...

I just saw that line, too, and added it to my original post. Wow!

Diogenes said...

Rob,

Thank you so much for posting this. This is wonderful. Hopefully someone will produce a similar on for the U.S. or, at least, get permission to dub in English over the German version.