VIDEO: Blind charity advert goes viral
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Published: 14 Jan, 2014 CET.
Updated: Tue 14 Jan 2014 12:15 CET
The marketing team at Norway's largest blind person's charity have been left bemused after an advertisement posted up on YouTube nearly a year ago suddenly appeared on websites in the UK, US, Netherlands, and Switzerland.
"It has never spread like it's doing now," Mia Jacobsen, press officer for Norway's Association for the Blind, said of the advert "It could have been worse," which was first posted on YouTube last April. She said Gunnar Haugsveen, the organization's General Secretary, was meeting Try, the Oslo agency behind the advert, in an attempt to find out what had happened. "Many people in The Netherlands spread it and shared it, and then it just got many favourites and re-tweets and things like that," Jacobsen said. "It was posted on this website called Buzzfeed, which I don't know what it is." The advert follows blind people getting around town using llamas, elks, donkeys and bisons as their guides, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. The idea is to convince people to be more tolerant of blind people bringing guide dogs into restaurants, taxis or public transport. Try, one of Oslo's leading agencies, was also behind a political advertisement last year in which the then Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, was filmed doing a shift undercover as a taxi driver, chatting to his passengers about politics. 
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"It has never spread like it's doing now," Mia Jacobsen, press officer for Norway's Association for the Blind, said of the advert "It could have been worse," which was first posted on YouTube last April.
She said Gunnar Haugsveen, the organization's General Secretary, was meeting Try, the Oslo agency behind the advert, in an attempt to find out what had happened.
"Many people in The Netherlands spread it and shared it, and then it just got many favourites and re-tweets and things like that," Jacobsen said. "It was posted on this website called Buzzfeed, which I don't know what it is."
The advert follows blind people getting around town using llamas, elks, donkeys and bisons as their guides, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. The idea is to convince people to be more tolerant of blind people bringing guide dogs into restaurants, taxis or public transport.
Try, one of Oslo's leading agencies, was also behind a political advertisement last year in which the then Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, was filmed doing a shift undercover as a taxi driver, chatting to his passengers about politics.
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