Gandhi Award Winning Ad

In 2004 Telecom Italia came out with an award winning advertisement on Gandhi that gave the following message:

“Sa avesse potuto comunicare così oggi che mondo sarebbe? Telecom Italia. Comunicare e vivere.” (What would the world be like if only he could have communicated like this. Telecom Italy. Communicating and Living).

The 60 second ad begins with a shot of Gandhi walking into his humble home in India. The camera shows us a web camera on Gandhi’s table, used by him to broadcast his message to people of many nations. A crowd in Times Square in New York watch Gandhi speaking on a large screen. A couple sitting on a park bench near the Coliseum in Rome view his message on a mobile phone. In London a group looks on as Gandhi speaks on a lap top screen. In a Chinese street a man listens to the message through his blue tooth head set. On an African plain two men in traditional hunting clothes connect with the message on their lap top, aided by satelite wireless connection. In Red Square, Moscow, another crowd hears the message in their language vi a large digital screen.

Gandhi’s words in the Telecom Italia TV ad:

“If you want to give a message it must be a message of ‘Love’, it must be a message of ‘Truth’. I want to capture your hearts. Let your hearts clap in unison with what I’m saying. A friend asked yesterday, ‘Did I believe in one world?’ How can I possibly do otherwise, of course I believe in one world”.

Gandhi’s Original Speech

The original speech, given to the Inter-Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi, April 2, 1947, had Gandhi speaking to over 20,000 people:

“I do not think that I should apologize to you, for having to speak in a foreign tongue. I wonder if this loudspeaker carries my voice to the farthest end of this vast audience. Will some of those who are far away will raise their hands if they listen to what I’m saying? Do you listen? Alright. Well, if my voice doesn’t carry, it won’t be my fault, it will be the fault of these loudspeakers…What I want you to understand if you can, that the message of the East, the message of Asia, is not to be learnt through European spectacles, through the Western spectacles, not by imitating the tinsel of the West, the gun-powder of the West, the atom bomb of the West. If you want to give a message again to the West, it must be a message of ‘Love’, it must be a message of ‘Truth’. There must be a conquest [applause], please, please, please. That will interfere with my speech, and that will interfere with your understanding also.
I want to capture your hearts and don’t want to receive your claps. Let your hearts clap in unison with what I’m saying, and I think, I shall have finished my work. Therefore, I want you to go away with the thought that Asia has to conquer the West.
Then, the question that a friend asked yesterday, ‘Did I believe in one world?’ Of course, I believe in one world. And how can I possibly do otherwise, when I become an inheritor of the message of love that these great un-conquerable teachers left for us?”