0:00:00.813,0:00:03.641
So I thought a lot about[br]the first word I'd say today,

0:00:03.641,0:00:06.155
and I decided to say "Colombia."

0:00:06.155,0:00:10.214
And the reason, I don't know[br]how many of you have visited Colombia,

0:00:10.214,0:00:13.134
but Colombia is just north[br]of the border with Brazil.

0:00:13.134,0:00:14.271
It's a beautiful country

0:00:14.271,0:00:17.337
with extraordinary people,[br]like me and others,

0:00:17.337,0:00:21.057
and it's populated

0:00:21.057,0:00:23.185
with incredible fauna, flora.

0:00:23.185,0:00:25.654
It's got water, it's got everything

0:00:25.654,0:00:27.558
to be the perfect place.

0:00:27.558,0:00:29.302
But we have a few problems.

0:00:29.302,0:00:31.082
You may have heard of some of them.

0:00:31.082,0:00:32.065
We have the oldest

0:00:32.065,0:00:34.550
standing guerrilla in the world.

0:00:34.550,0:00:36.414
It's been around for over 50 years,

0:00:36.414,0:00:39.177
which means that in my lifetime,

0:00:39.177,0:00:41.792
I have never lived one day of peace

0:00:41.792,0:00:44.160
in my country.

0:00:44.160,0:00:45.785
This guerrilla, and the main group

0:00:45.785,0:00:47.724
is the FARC guerrillas --

0:00:47.724,0:00:50.142
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia --

0:00:50.142,0:00:54.299
and they have financed their war

0:00:54.299,0:00:57.861
by kidnapping, by extortion,

0:00:57.861,0:00:59.645
by getting into the drug trade,

0:00:59.645,0:01:01.690
by illegal mining.

0:01:01.690,0:01:05.301
There has been terrorism.[br]There have been random bombs.

0:01:05.301,0:01:07.746
So it's not good.

0:01:07.746,0:01:09.626
It's not really good,

0:01:09.626,0:01:12.526
and if you look at the human cost

0:01:12.526,0:01:14.357
of this war over 50 years,

0:01:14.357,0:01:19.197
we have had more than[br]5.7 million displaced population.

0:01:19.197,0:01:22.495
It's one of the biggest displaced[br]populations in the world,

0:01:22.495,0:01:24.004
and this conflict has cost

0:01:24.004,0:01:26.374
over 220,000 lives.

0:01:26.374,0:01:29.762
So it's a little bit like[br]the Bolivarian wars again.

0:01:29.762,0:01:32.587
It's a lot of people who[br]have died unnecessarily.

0:01:32.587,0:01:35.665
We are now in the middle of peace talks,

0:01:35.665,0:01:37.368
and we've been trying to help

0:01:37.368,0:01:39.045
resolve this problem peacefully,

0:01:39.045,0:01:40.518
and as part of that,

0:01:40.518,0:01:42.129
we decided to try something

0:01:42.129,0:01:44.797
completely radical and different:

0:01:44.797,0:01:46.641
Christmas lights.

0:01:46.641,0:01:48.977
So Christmas lights, and you're saying,

0:01:48.977,0:01:51.893
what the hell is this guy[br]going to talk about? Okay.

0:01:52.293,0:01:54.945
I am going to talk about

0:01:54.945,0:01:56.823
gigantic trees

0:01:56.823,0:02:01.006
that we put in nine strategic pathways

0:02:01.006,0:02:02.862
in the jungle

0:02:02.862,0:02:04.421
covered with Christmas lights.

0:02:04.421,0:02:08.388
These trees helped us demobilize

0:02:08.388,0:02:10.919
331 guerrillas,

0:02:10.919,0:02:12.637
roughly five percent

0:02:12.637,0:02:15.079
of the guerrilla force at the time.

0:02:15.079,0:02:17.815
These trees were lit up at night,

0:02:17.815,0:02:20.044
and they had a sign beside them

0:02:20.044,0:02:24.735
that said, "If Christmas can come[br]to the jungle, you can come home.

0:02:24.735,0:02:26.435
Demobilize.

0:02:26.435,0:02:28.916
At Christmas, everything is possible."

0:02:28.916,0:02:32.209
So how do we know these trees worked?

0:02:32.209,0:02:34.215
Well, we got 331, which is okay,

0:02:34.215,0:02:37.480
but we also know that

0:02:37.480,0:02:39.548
not a lot of guerrillas saw them,

0:02:39.548,0:02:41.984
but we know that a lot of[br]guerrillas heard about them,

0:02:41.984,0:02:43.191
and we know this

0:02:43.191,0:02:46.075
because we are constantly talking[br]to demobilized guerrillas.

0:02:46.075,0:02:49.050
So let me take you back[br]four years before the trees.

0:02:49.050,0:02:52.735
Four years before the trees,[br]we were approached by the government

0:02:52.735,0:02:54.522
to help them come up

0:02:54.522,0:02:56.869
with a communications strategy

0:02:56.869,0:03:00.082
to get as many guerrillas[br]as we could out of the jungle.

0:03:00.082,0:03:02.674
The government had a military strategy,

0:03:02.674,0:03:03.862
it had a legal strategy,

0:03:03.862,0:03:06.691
it had a political strategy, but it said,

0:03:06.691,0:03:09.036
we don't really have[br]a communications strategy,

0:03:09.036,0:03:12.147
and it probably would be[br]a good thing to have,

0:03:12.147,0:03:16.373
so we decided to[br]immediately jump into this,

0:03:16.373,0:03:18.568
because it is an opportunity

0:03:18.568,0:03:21.899
to effect the outcome of the conflict

0:03:21.899,0:03:23.324
with the things that we do,

0:03:23.324,0:03:26.264
with the tools that we have.

0:03:26.264,0:03:28.493
But we didn't know very much about it.

0:03:28.493,0:03:30.629
We didn't understand in Colombia,

0:03:30.629,0:03:33.300
if you live in the cities,[br]you're very far away

0:03:33.300,0:03:34.963
from where the war is actually happening,

0:03:34.963,0:03:37.016
so you don't really understand it,

0:03:37.016,0:03:38.612
and we asked the government to give us

0:03:38.612,0:03:41.404
access to as many demobilized[br]guerrillas as possible.

0:03:41.404,0:03:43.980
And we talked to about 60 of them

0:03:43.980,0:03:49.374
before we felt we fully[br]understood the problem.

0:03:49.374,0:03:52.386
They told us why they[br]had joined the guerrillas,

0:03:52.386,0:03:55.265
why the left the guerrillas,[br]what their dreams were,

0:03:55.265,0:03:56.983
what their frustrations were,

0:03:56.983,0:03:58.933
and from those conversations came

0:03:58.933,0:04:01.418
the underlying insight

0:04:01.418,0:04:03.693
that has guided this whole campaign,

0:04:03.693,0:04:05.540
which is

0:04:05.540,0:04:09.150
that guerrillas are as much[br]prisoners of their organizations

0:04:09.150,0:04:11.533
as the people they hold hostage.

0:04:11.533,0:04:14.313
And at the beginning, we were[br]so touched by these stories,

0:04:14.313,0:04:16.596
we were so amazed by these stories,

0:04:16.596,0:04:18.468
that we thought that maybe the best way

0:04:18.468,0:04:20.465
to talk to the guerrillas was to have them

0:04:20.465,0:04:22.570
talk to themselves,

0:04:22.570,0:04:27.354
so we recorded about a hundred[br]different stories during the first year,

0:04:27.354,0:04:29.722
and we put them on[br]the radio and television

0:04:29.722,0:04:31.649
so that the guerrillas in the jungle

0:04:31.649,0:04:34.157
could hear stories, their stories,

0:04:34.157,0:04:36.415
or stories similar to theirs,

0:04:36.415,0:04:39.195
and when they heard them,[br]they decided to go out.

0:04:39.195,0:04:41.889
I want to tell you one of these stories.

0:04:41.889,0:04:44.443
This person you see here is Joanni Andres.

0:04:44.443,0:04:47.274
Joanni Andres is 25[br]when we took that picture.

0:04:47.274,0:04:49.292
He had been seven years in the guerrilla,

0:04:49.292,0:04:51.993
and he had demobilized very recently.

0:04:51.993,0:04:54.528
His story is the following:

0:04:54.528,0:04:57.724
he was recruited when he was 17,

0:04:57.724,0:05:00.639
and sometime later,

0:05:00.639,0:05:02.903
in his squadron, if you will,

0:05:02.903,0:05:06.385
this beautiful girl was recruited,

0:05:06.385,0:05:08.076
and they fell in love.

0:05:08.076,0:05:09.976
Their conversations were about

0:05:09.976,0:05:11.957
what their family was going to be like,

0:05:11.957,0:05:14.288
what their kid's names would be,

0:05:14.288,0:05:16.885
how their life would be[br]when they left the guerrilla.

0:05:16.885,0:05:18.342
But it turns out

0:05:18.342,0:05:20.255
that love is very strictly forbidden

0:05:20.255,0:05:22.042
in the lower ranks of the guerrilla,

0:05:22.042,0:05:24.078
so their romance was discovered

0:05:24.078,0:05:25.587
and they were separated.

0:05:25.587,0:05:28.711
He was sent very far away,[br]and she was left behind.

0:05:28.711,0:05:31.368
She was very familiar with the territory,

0:05:31.368,0:05:33.876
so one night, when she was on guard,

0:05:33.876,0:05:35.605
she just left,

0:05:35.605,0:05:39.112
and she went to the army, she demobilized,

0:05:39.112,0:05:41.236
and she was one of the persons

0:05:41.236,0:05:43.053
that we had the fortune to talk to,

0:05:43.053,0:05:45.346
and we were really touched by this story,

0:05:45.346,0:05:47.714
so we made a radio spot,

0:05:47.714,0:05:50.640
and it turns out, by chance,

0:05:50.640,0:05:54.123
that far away, many, many kilometers north

0:05:54.123,0:05:57.281
he heard her on the radio,

0:05:57.281,0:05:59.881
and when he heard her on the radio,

0:05:59.881,0:06:01.845
he said, "What am I doing here?

0:06:01.845,0:06:05.751
She had the balls to get out.

0:06:05.751,0:06:09.006
I need to do the same thing." And he did.

0:06:09.006,0:06:11.589
He walked for two days and two nights,

0:06:11.589,0:06:13.952
and he risked his life and he got out,

0:06:13.952,0:06:16.913
and the only thing[br]he wanted was to see her.

0:06:16.913,0:06:20.439
The only thing that was[br]in his mind was to see her.

0:06:20.439,0:06:23.356
The story was, they did meet. Okay?

0:06:23.356,0:06:25.887
I know you're wondering if they did meet.

0:06:25.887,0:06:27.136
They did meet.

0:06:27.136,0:06:31.469
She had been recruited when she was 15,[br]and she left when she was 17,

0:06:31.469,0:06:33.629
so there were a lot[br]of other complications,

0:06:33.629,0:06:35.151
but they did eventually meet.

0:06:35.151,0:06:36.990
I don't know if they're together now,

0:06:36.990,0:06:40.306
but I can find out. (Laughter)

0:06:40.306,0:06:44.557
But what I can tell you is that

0:06:44.557,0:06:48.200
our radio strategy was working.

0:06:48.200,0:06:51.861
The problem is that it was working[br]in the lower ranks of the guerrilla.

0:06:51.861,0:06:54.224
It was not working with the commanders,

0:06:54.224,0:06:56.435
the people that are[br]more difficult to replace,

0:06:56.435,0:06:59.063
because you can easily recruit

0:06:59.063,0:07:02.078
but you can't get the older commanders.

0:07:02.078,0:07:05.696
So we thought, well,[br]we'll use the same strategy.

0:07:05.696,0:07:08.412
We'll have commanders[br]talking to commanders.

0:07:08.412,0:07:09.788
And we even went as far

0:07:09.788,0:07:12.034
as asking ex-commanders of the guerrilla

0:07:12.034,0:07:14.773
to fly on helicopters with microphones

0:07:14.773,0:07:18.234
telling the people that[br]used to fight with them,

0:07:18.234,0:07:20.347
"There is a better life out there,

0:07:20.347,0:07:22.924
I'm doing good,[br]this is not worth it." Etc.

0:07:22.924,0:07:26.180
But, as you can all imagine,

0:07:26.180,0:07:28.450
it was very easy to counteract,

0:07:28.450,0:07:30.583
because what was[br]the guerrilla going to say?

0:07:30.583,0:07:33.791
"Yeah, right, if he doesn't do that,[br]he's going to get killed."

0:07:33.791,0:07:37.856
So it was easy, so we were[br]suddenly left with nothing,

0:07:37.856,0:07:40.135
because the guerrilla[br]were spreading the word

0:07:40.135,0:07:42.846
that all of those things are done

0:07:42.846,0:07:45.423
because if they don't do it,

0:07:45.423,0:07:48.488
they're in danger.

0:07:48.488,0:07:51.512
And somebody, some[br]brilliant person in our team,

0:07:51.512,0:07:55.150
came back and said,[br]"You know what I noticed?

0:07:55.150,0:07:58.707
I noticed that around Christmastime,

0:07:58.707,0:08:01.398
there have been peaks of demobilization

0:08:01.398,0:08:04.393
since this war has started."

0:08:04.393,0:08:07.690
And that was incredible, because

0:08:07.690,0:08:10.291
that led us to think that we needed

0:08:10.291,0:08:12.474
to talk to the human being

0:08:12.474,0:08:14.052
and not to the soldier.

0:08:14.052,0:08:16.189
We needed to step away from talking

0:08:16.189,0:08:21.459
from government to army,[br]from army to army,

0:08:21.459,0:08:24.756
and we needed to talk[br]about the universal values,

0:08:24.756,0:08:27.218
and we needed to talk about humanity.

0:08:27.218,0:08:30.592
And that was when[br]the Christmas tree happened.

0:08:30.592,0:08:32.599
This picture that I have here,

0:08:32.599,0:08:35.791
you see this is the planning[br]of the Christmas trees,

0:08:35.791,0:08:37.968
and that man you see there

0:08:37.968,0:08:39.640
with the three stars,

0:08:39.640,0:08:41.669
he's Captain Juan Manuel Valdez.

0:08:41.669,0:08:44.330
Captain Valdez was

0:08:44.330,0:08:48.173
the first high-ranking official to give us

0:08:48.173,0:08:50.502
the helicopters and the support we needed

0:08:50.502,0:08:52.853
to put these Christmas trees up,

0:08:52.853,0:08:56.145
and he said in that meeting[br]something that I will never forget.

0:08:56.145,0:08:58.586
He said, "I want to do this

0:08:58.586,0:09:03.579
because being generous makes me stronger,

0:09:03.579,0:09:05.691
makes my men feel stronger."

0:09:05.691,0:09:08.431
And I get very emotional[br]when I remember him

0:09:08.431,0:09:10.776
because he was killed later in combat

0:09:10.776,0:09:12.799
and we really miss him,

0:09:12.799,0:09:16.722
but I'd want you all to see him,

0:09:16.722,0:09:19.066
because he was really, really important.

0:09:19.066,0:09:23.220
He gave us all the support[br]to put up the first Christmas trees.

0:09:23.220,0:09:25.033
What happened later is that

0:09:25.033,0:09:29.573
the guerrillas who came out[br]during the Christmas tree operation

0:09:29.573,0:09:33.369
said, "That's really good,[br]Christmas trees are really cool,

0:09:33.369,0:09:35.899
but you know what?[br]We really don't walk anymore.

0:09:35.899,0:09:37.351
We use rivers."

0:09:37.351,0:09:41.008
So rivers are the highways of the jungle,

0:09:41.008,0:09:42.935
and this is something we learned,

0:09:42.935,0:09:45.257
and most of the recruiting was being done

0:09:45.257,0:09:48.205
in and around the river villages.

0:09:48.205,0:09:50.520
So we went to these river villages,

0:09:50.520,0:09:52.421
and we asked the people,

0:09:52.421,0:09:55.775
and probably some of them were[br]direct acquaintances of the guerrillas.

0:09:55.775,0:09:59.769
We asked them, "Can you send[br]guerrillas a message?"

0:09:59.769,0:10:03.159
We collected over 6,000 messages.

0:10:03.159,0:10:05.805
Some of them were notes saying, "Get out."

0:10:05.805,0:10:08.522
Some of them were toys.[br]Some of them were candy.

0:10:08.522,0:10:10.542
Even people took off their jewelry,

0:10:10.542,0:10:12.725
their little crosses and religious things,

0:10:12.725,0:10:15.650
and put them in these floating balls

0:10:15.650,0:10:18.112
that we sent down the rivers

0:10:18.112,0:10:20.735
so that they could be picked up at night,

0:10:20.735,0:10:23.093
and we sent thousands[br]of these down the rivers

0:10:23.093,0:10:25.263
and then picked them up[br]later if they weren't.

0:10:25.263,0:10:26.795
But lots of them were picked up.

0:10:26.795,0:10:29.538
This generated, on average,

0:10:29.538,0:10:31.736
a demobilization every six hours,

0:10:31.736,0:10:34.086
so this was incredible and it was about

0:10:34.086,0:10:37.290
coming home at Christmas.

0:10:37.290,0:10:41.001
Then came the peace process,

0:10:41.001,0:10:43.442
and when the peace process started,

0:10:43.442,0:10:45.762
the whole mindset[br]of the guerrilla changed.

0:10:45.762,0:10:48.087
And it changed because

0:10:48.087,0:10:50.836
it makes you think, "Well,[br]if there's a peace process,

0:10:50.836,0:10:52.778
this is probably going to be over.

0:10:52.778,0:10:54.890
At some point I'm going to get out."

0:10:54.890,0:10:57.096
And their fears completely changed,

0:10:57.096,0:11:00.324
and their fears were not about,[br]"Am I going to get killed?"

0:11:00.324,0:11:03.923
Their fears were, "Am I[br]going to be rejected?

0:11:03.923,0:11:06.732
When I get out of this,[br]am I going to be rejected?"

0:11:06.732,0:11:08.683
So the past Christmas, what we did

0:11:08.683,0:11:12.792
was we asked, we found 27 mothers

0:11:12.792,0:11:14.580
of guerrillas and we asked them

0:11:14.580,0:11:17.784
to give us pictures of their children,

0:11:17.784,0:11:22.359
ones they only could recognize themselves,[br]so as not to put their lives in danger,

0:11:22.359,0:11:24.170
and we asked them to give

0:11:24.170,0:11:26.515
the most motherly message you can get,

0:11:26.515,0:11:30.857
which is, "Before you were guerrilla,[br]you were my child,

0:11:30.857,0:11:33.109
so come home, I'm waiting for you."

0:11:33.109,0:11:36.731
You can see the pictures here.[br]I'll show you a couple.

0:11:36.731,0:11:38.705
(Applause)

0:11:38.705,0:11:41.863
Thank you.

0:11:43.552,0:11:46.390
And these pictures were placed

0:11:46.390,0:11:48.805
in many different places,

0:11:48.805,0:11:52.892
and a lot of them came back,

0:11:52.892,0:11:55.840
and it was really, really beautiful.

0:11:55.840,0:11:59.315
And then we decided to work with society.

0:11:59.315,0:12:01.972
So we did mothers around Christmastime.

0:12:01.972,0:12:04.826
Now let's talk about[br]the rest of the people.

0:12:04.826,0:12:07.218
And you may be aware of this or not,

0:12:07.218,0:12:10.190
but there was a World Cup this year,

0:12:10.190,0:12:14.617
and Colombia played really well,

0:12:14.617,0:12:17.736
and it was a unifying moment for Colombia.

0:12:17.736,0:12:21.453
And what we did was tell the guerrillas,

0:12:21.453,0:12:23.610
"Come, get out of the jungle.

0:12:23.610,0:12:25.746
We're saving a place for you."

0:12:25.746,0:12:27.232
So this was television,

0:12:27.232,0:12:30.715
this was all sorts of media saying,

0:12:30.715,0:12:33.037
"We are saving a place for you."

0:12:33.037,0:12:36.056
The soldier here in the commercial says,

0:12:36.056,0:12:39.121
"I'm saving a place for you[br]right here in this helicopter

0:12:39.121,0:12:40.932
so that you can get out of this jungle

0:12:40.932,0:12:43.114
and go enjoy the World Cup."

0:12:43.114,0:12:45.901
Ex-football players, radio announcers,

0:12:45.901,0:12:48.455
everybody was saving[br]a place for the guerrilla.

0:12:48.455,0:12:50.950
So since we started this work,

0:12:50.950,0:12:53.059
a little over eight years ago,

0:12:53.059,0:12:56.397
17,000 guerrillas have demobilized.

0:12:56.397,0:13:00.436
I do not -- (Applause)

0:13:00.436,0:13:03.397
Thank you.

0:13:03.397,0:13:08.214
I don't want to say in any way

0:13:08.214,0:13:11.817
that it only has to do with what we do,

0:13:11.817,0:13:15.598
but what I do know is that our work

0:13:15.598,0:13:18.430
and the work that we do

0:13:18.430,0:13:20.590
may have helped a lot of them

0:13:20.590,0:13:22.958
start thinking about demobilization,

0:13:22.958,0:13:25.210
and it may have helped a lot of them

0:13:25.210,0:13:27.008
take the final decision.

0:13:27.008,0:13:30.528
If that is true, advertising is still

0:13:30.528,0:13:33.495
one of the most powerful tools of change

0:13:33.495,0:13:35.740
that we have available.

0:13:35.740,0:13:38.631
And I speak not only my behalf,

0:13:38.631,0:13:40.975
but on behalf of all[br]the colleagues I see here

0:13:40.975,0:13:42.639
who work in advertising,

0:13:42.639,0:13:46.665
and of all the team that has[br]worked with me to do this,

0:13:46.665,0:13:50.124
that if you want to change the world,

0:13:50.124,0:13:52.005
or if you want to achieve peace,

0:13:52.005,0:13:53.955
please call us. We'd love to help.

0:13:53.955,0:13:56.138
Thank you.

0:13:56.138,0:14:00.712
(Applause)