Most days we sell crap to people who don't need it. Every now and then we do something good for humanity.
These isolated cases we praise in our industry publications and awards shows. We then get back to our day-to-day grind.
I keep hearing that advertising has some of the brightest people in the world working in it. Theoretically we could change the world.
But, we don't.
A friend of mine here in San Francisco (not an advertising guy) just planned a fund raiser based on people bringing pies and paying a few bucks. It's a simple idea, but it's doing something good. Why don't agencies come up with stuff like that more often? We're brilliant supposedly, why don't we put just a small percentage of our minds towards making the world a better place?
Big praise to Droga5 for setting a good example.