Oxfam has put Saatchi & Saatchi, HHCL/Red Cell and WWAV Rapp Collins in the frame to win the work, which aims to raise awareness of inequalities in global trading conditions. BMP DDB, Oxfam's retained agency, was not on the shortlist.
The awareness-raising campaign is part of Oxfam's Fairtrade initiative, which set up in the early 1990s to respond to the human consequences of collapsing world commodity prices. In 2002, HHCL was the first advertising agency to be retained by the Fairtrade Foundation.
With the World Trade Organisation due to meet in Mexico this September, Oxfam hopes to launch its campaign by the end of the summer. It has already lined up celebrities such as Miss Dynamite, Colin Firth and Chris Martin, singer from Coldplay, to support the campaign.
Fairtrade Fortnight, the latest initiative to encourage shoppers to buy ethically produced food and drink, is drawing to a close this Friday. It was supported by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, the newly enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, food writer Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall, the secretary of state for trade and industry Patricia Hewitt and BBC news presenter George Alagiah, who is patron of the Fairtrade Foundation.
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