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So, I thought a lot about
the first word I'd say today,

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and I decided to say "Colombia."

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And the reason, I don't know
how many of you have visited Colombia,

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but Colombia is just north
of the border with Brazil.

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It's a beautiful country

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with extraordinary people,
like me and others -- (Laughter) --

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and it's populated
with incredible fauna, flora.

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It's got water; it's got everything
to be the perfect place.

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But we have a few problems.

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You may have heard of some of them.

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We have the oldest
standing guerrilla in the world.

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It's been around for over 50 years,

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which means that in my lifetime,

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I have never lived one day 
of peace in my country.

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This guerrilla -- and the main group
is the FARC guerrillas,

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Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia --

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they have financed their war
by kidnapping, by extortion,

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by getting into the drug trade,
by illegal mining.

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There has been terrorism.
There have been random bombs.

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So it's not good.
It's not really good.

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And if you look at the human cost
of this war over 50 years,

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we have had more than
5.7 million displaced population.

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It's one of the biggest displaced
populations in the world,

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and this conflict has cost
over 220,000 lives.

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So it's a little bit like
the Bolívar wars again.

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It's a lot of people who
have died unnecessarily.

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We are now in the middle of peace talks,

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and we've been trying to help
resolve this problem peacefully,

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and as part of that,

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we decided to try something
completely lateral and different:

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Christmas lights.

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So Christmas lights, and you're saying,

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what the hell is this guy
going to talk about?

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I am going to talk about gigantic trees

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that we put in nine strategic 
pathways in the jungle

36
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covered with Christmas lights.

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These trees helped us 
demobilize 331 guerrillas,

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roughly five percent
of the guerrilla force at the time.

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These trees were lit up at night,

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and they had a sign beside them

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that said, "If Christmas can come
to the jungle, you can come home.

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Demobilize.

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At Christmas, everything is possible."

44
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So how do we know these trees worked?

45
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Well, we got 331, which is okay,

46
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but we also know that
not a lot of guerrillas saw them,

47
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but we know that a lot of
guerrillas heard about them,

48
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and we know this

49
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because we are constantly talking
to demobilized guerrillas.

50
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So let me take you back
four years before the trees.

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Four years before the trees,
we were approached by the government

52
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to help them come up with
a communications strategy

53
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to get as many guerrillas
as we could out of the jungle.

54
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The government had a military strategy,

55
00:03:02,534 --> 00:03:03,862
it had a legal strategy,

56
00:03:03,862 --> 00:03:06,691
it had a political strategy, but it said,

57
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"We don't really have
a communications strategy,

58
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and it probably would be
a good thing to have,"

59
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so we decided to
immediately jump into this,

60
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because it is an opportunity
to affect the outcome of the conflict

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with the things that we do,
with the tools that we have.

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But we didn't know very much about it.

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We didn't understand in Colombia, 
if you live in the cities,

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you're very far away from where 
the war is actually happening,

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so you don't really understand it,

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and we asked the government 
to give us access

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to as many demobilized
guerrillas as possible.

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And we talked to about 60 of them

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before we felt we fully
understood the problem.

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We talked about -- they told us why 
they had joined the guerrillas,

71
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why the left the guerrillas,
what their dreams were,

72
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what their frustrations were,

73
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and from those conversations
came the underlying insight

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that has guided this whole campaign,

75
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which is that guerrillas are as much
prisoners of their organizations

76
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as the people they hold hostage.

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And at the beginning, we were
so touched by these stories,

78
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we were so amazed by these stories,

79
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that we thought that maybe 
the best way to talk to the guerrillas

80
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was to have them talk to themselves,

81
00:04:22,570 --> 00:04:27,354
so we recorded about a hundred
different stories during the first year,

82
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and we put them on
the radio and television

83
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so that the guerrillas in the jungle
could hear stories, their stories,

84
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or stories similar to theirs,

85
00:04:36,415 --> 00:04:39,195
and when they heard them,
they decided to go out.

86
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I want to tell you one of these stories.

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This person you see here 
is Giovanni Andres.

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Giovanni Andres is 25
when we took that picture.

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He had been seven years in the guerrilla,
and he had demobilized very recently.

90
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His story is the following:

91
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He was recruited when he was 17,

92
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and sometime later,
in his squadron, if you will,

93
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this beautiful girl was recruited,
and they fell in love.

94
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Their conversations were about
what their family was going to be like,

95
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what their kids' names would be,

96
00:05:14,288 --> 00:05:16,885
how their life would be
when they left the guerrilla.

97
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But it turns out

98
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that love is very strictly forbidden
in the lower ranks of the guerrilla,

99
00:05:21,935 --> 00:05:25,298
so their romance was discovered
and they were separated.

100
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He was sent very far away,
and she was left behind.

101
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She was very familiar with the territory,

102
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so one night, when she was on guard,

103
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she just left,

104
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and she went to the army, she demobilized,

105
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and she was one of the persons
that we had the fortune to talk to,

106
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and we were really touched by this story,

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so we made a radio spot,

108
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and it turns out, by chance,

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that far away, many, 
many kilometers north,

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he heard her on the radio,

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and when he heard her on the radio,
he said, "What am I doing here?

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She had the balls to get out.
I need to do the same thing."

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And he did.

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He walked for two days and two nights,

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and he risked his life and he got out,

116
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and the only thing
he wanted was to see her.

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The only thing that was
in his mind was to see her.

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The story was, they did meet.

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I know you're wondering if they did meet.

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They did meet.

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She had been recruited when she was 15,
and she left when she was 17,

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so there were a lot
of other complications,

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but they did eventually meet.

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I don't know if they're together now,
but I can find out. (Laughter)

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But what I can tell you is that
our radio strategy was working.

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The problem is that it was working
in the lower ranks of the guerrilla.

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It was not working with the commanders,

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the people that are
more difficult to replace,

129
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because you can easily recruit
but you can't get the older commanders.

130
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So we thought, well,
we'll use the same strategy.

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We'll have commanders
talking to commanders.

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And we even went as far
as asking ex-commanders of the guerrilla

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to fly on helicopters with microphones

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telling the people that
used to fight with them,

135
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"There is a better life out there,"

136
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"I'm doing good,"
"This is not worth it," etc.

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But, as you can all imagine,
it was very easy to counteract,

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because what was
the guerrilla going to say?

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"Yeah, right, if he doesn't do that,
he's going to get killed."

140
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So it was easy, so we were
suddenly left with nothing,

141
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because the guerrilla
were spreading the word

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that all of those things are done

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because if they don't do it, 
they're in danger.

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And somebody, some
brilliant person in our team,

145
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came back and said,
"You know what I noticed?

146
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I noticed that around Christmastime,

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there have been peaks of demobilization

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since this war has started."

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And that was incredible,

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00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:12,481
because that led us to think 
that we needed to talk to the human being

151
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and not to the soldier.

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We needed to step away from talking

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from government to army,
from army to army,

154
00:08:21,459 --> 00:08:24,756
and we needed to talk
about the universal values,

155
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and we needed to talk about humanity.

156
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And that was when
the Christmas tree happened.

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This picture that I have here,

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you see this is the planning
of the Christmas trees,

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and that man you see there
with the three stars,

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he's Captain Juan Manuel Valdez.

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Captain Valdez was the first 
high-ranking official

162
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to give us the helicopters 
and the support we needed

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to put these Christmas trees up,

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00:08:52,853 --> 00:08:56,145
and he said in that meeting
something that I will never forget.

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He said, "I want to do this
because being generous makes me stronger,

166
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makes my men feel stronger."

167
00:09:05,691 --> 00:09:08,431
And I get very emotional
when I remember him

168
00:09:08,431 --> 00:09:12,816
because he was killed later in combat
and we really miss him,

169
00:09:12,816 --> 00:09:19,092
but I wanted you all to see him,
because he was really, really important.

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He gave us all the support
to put up the first Christmas trees.

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What happened later is that
the guerrillas who came out

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during the Christmas tree 
operation and all of that

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said, "That's really good,
Christmas trees are really cool,

174
00:09:33,369 --> 00:09:35,899
but you know what?
We really don't walk anymore.

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We use rivers."

176
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So rivers are the highways of the jungle,

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00:09:40,738 --> 00:09:42,935
and this is something we learned,

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and most of the recruiting was being done
in and around the river villages.

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So we went to these river villages,

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and we asked the people,

181
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and probably some of them were
direct acquaintances of the guerrillas.

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We asked them, "Can you send
guerrillas a message?"

183
00:09:59,769 --> 00:10:03,159
We collected over 6,000 messages.

184
00:10:03,159 --> 00:10:05,805
Some of them were notes saying, get out.

185
00:10:05,805 --> 00:10:08,522
Some of them were toys.
Some of them were candy.

186
00:10:08,522 --> 00:10:12,712
Even people took off their jewelry,
their little crosses and religious things,

187
00:10:12,725 --> 00:10:18,140
and put them in these floating balls
that we sent down the rivers

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00:10:18,140 --> 00:10:20,735
so that they could be picked up at night.

189
00:10:20,735 --> 00:10:23,093
And we sent thousands
of these down the rivers,

190
00:10:23,093 --> 00:10:25,263
and then picked them up
later if they weren't.

191
00:10:25,263 --> 00:10:26,795
But lots of them were picked up.

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00:10:26,795 --> 00:10:31,686
This generated, on average,
a demobilization every six hours,

193
00:10:31,686 --> 00:10:35,746
so this was incredible and it was about:
Come home at Christmas.

194
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:41,001
Then came the peace process,

195
00:10:41,001 --> 00:10:43,442
and when the peace process started,

196
00:10:43,442 --> 00:10:45,762
the whole mindset
of the guerrilla changed.

197
00:10:45,762 --> 00:10:48,087
And it changed because

198
00:10:48,087 --> 00:10:50,836
it makes you think, "Well,
if there's a peace process,

199
00:10:50,836 --> 00:10:52,778
this is probably going to be over.

200
00:10:52,778 --> 00:10:54,890
At some point I'm going to get out."

201
00:10:54,890 --> 00:10:57,096
And their fears completely changed,

202
00:10:57,096 --> 00:11:00,324
and their fears were not about,
"Am I going to get killed?"

203
00:11:00,324 --> 00:11:03,923
Their fears were, "Am I
going to be rejected?

204
00:11:03,923 --> 00:11:06,732
When I get out of this,
am I going to be rejected?"

205
00:11:06,732 --> 00:11:09,803
So the past Christmas, 
what we did was we asked --

206
00:11:09,803 --> 00:11:13,550
we found 27 mothers of guerrillas,

207
00:11:13,550 --> 00:11:17,784
and we asked them to give us 
pictures of their children,

208
00:11:17,784 --> 00:11:21,989
when they only could recognize themselves,
so as not to put their lives in danger,

209
00:11:21,989 --> 00:11:26,265
and we asked them to give
the most motherly message you can get,

210
00:11:26,265 --> 00:11:30,857
which is, "Before you were a guerrilla,
you were my child,

211
00:11:30,857 --> 00:11:33,109
so come home, I'm waiting for you."

212
00:11:33,109 --> 00:11:36,261
You can see the pictures here.
I'll show you a couple.

213
00:11:36,261 --> 00:11:37,605
(Applause)

214
00:11:37,605 --> 00:11:39,803
Thank you.

215
00:11:43,552 --> 00:11:48,730
And these pictures were placed
in many different places,

216
00:11:48,730 --> 00:11:52,892
and a lot of them came back,

217
00:11:52,892 --> 00:11:55,840
and it was really, really beautiful.

218
00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:59,315
And then we decided to work with society.

219
00:11:59,315 --> 00:12:01,972
So we did mothers around Christmastime.

220
00:12:01,972 --> 00:12:04,826
Now let's talk about
the rest of the people.

221
00:12:04,826 --> 00:12:10,188
And you may be aware of this or not,
but there was a World Cup this year,

222
00:12:10,190 --> 00:12:17,617
and Colombia played really well,
and it was a unifying moment for Colombia.

223
00:12:17,617 --> 00:12:21,453
And what we did was tell the guerrillas,

224
00:12:21,453 --> 00:12:25,510
"Come, get out of the jungle.
We're saving a place for you."

225
00:12:25,510 --> 00:12:30,575
So this was television, this was 
all different types of media saying,

226
00:12:30,575 --> 00:12:33,037
"We are saving a place for you."

227
00:12:33,037 --> 00:12:36,056
The soldier here in the commercial says,

228
00:12:36,056 --> 00:12:38,921
"I'm saving a place for you
right here in this helicopter

229
00:12:38,921 --> 00:12:42,734
so that you can get out of this jungle
and go enjoy the World Cup."

230
00:12:42,734 --> 00:12:45,901
Ex-football players, radio announcers,

231
00:12:45,901 --> 00:12:48,195
everybody was saving
a place for the guerrilla.

232
00:12:48,195 --> 00:12:52,970
So since we started this work
a little over eight years ago,

233
00:12:52,970 --> 00:12:56,397
17,000 guerrillas have demobilized.

234
00:12:56,397 --> 00:13:00,436
I do not -- (Applause)

235
00:13:00,436 --> 00:13:03,017
Thank you.

236
00:13:03,017 --> 00:13:11,714
I don't want to say in any way
that it only has to do with what we do,

237
00:13:11,714 --> 00:13:18,288
but what I do know is that our work
and the work that we do

238
00:13:18,288 --> 00:13:22,960
may have helped a lot of them
start thinking about demobilization,

239
00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:26,968
and it may have helped a lot of them
take the final decision.

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00:13:26,968 --> 00:13:33,498
If that is true, advertising is still
one of the most powerful tools of change

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00:13:33,498 --> 00:13:35,740
that we have available.

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And I speak not only my behalf,

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00:13:38,631 --> 00:13:40,975
but on behalf of all
the colleagues I see here

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00:13:40,975 --> 00:13:42,639
who work in advertising,

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00:13:42,639 --> 00:13:46,665
and of all the team that has
worked with me to do this,

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00:13:46,665 --> 00:13:49,914
that if you want to change the world,

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00:13:49,914 --> 00:13:52,375
or if you want to achieve 
peace, please call us.

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00:13:52,375 --> 00:13:53,875
We'd love to help.

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00:13:53,875 --> 00:13:55,238
Thank you.

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00:13:55,238 --> 00:14:00,712
(Applause)