DU BIST EINE IMAGEKAMPAGNE
Against an elegant Goethian landscape, an elderly woman murmurs: “You are the wonder of Germany.” A series of surprising faces follow in this TV spot: an Asian mother, an African footballer, a Turkish singer with a mentally handicapped film star (filmed at Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
With German unemployment topping 10 percent, the tentative optimism of the campaign "Du bist Deutschland" - "You are Germany" - is a $36 million effort from 25 media companies. "John F. Kennedy met a portal at Cape Canaveral and asked him what his job was," says Michael Trautmann, the campaign's co-creative director. "'I'm helping to put the first man on the moon, Mr. President,' he replied. That's what we need: people who feel they're in the driver's seat."
The inevitable parody responses have ranged from the absurd ("You are a potato") to sharp admonishments against nationalism (images of Nazis and Ulrike Meinhof). And the obscene gesture in Jorge Jorges' "Du disst Deutschland" has made a few Germans crack a smile.
—Jude Stewart for Print magazine, December 2005
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