The United Nations unveiled a multimedia advertising campaign on Tuesday to reassure nervous New Yorkers that a world summit opening in Manhattan next week will be worth the huge traffic jams.
In one television spot, a fictional New Yorker invited to address the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly states that half the world lives in poverty, "so you should fix that."
"Also, if there is any way you could avoid Second Avenue when you come here, that would be great, because you are really messing up my commute," he adds.
The three-day world summit opening September 14 at U.N. headquarters on Manhattan's East Side will be the world's largest gathering of world leaders ever, with more than 170 presidents and prime ministers attending, including President Bush.
Accompanying them will be closed streets, traffic-stopping motorcades, choked sidewalks, packed restaurants and security precautions that can paralyze entire neighborhoods.
Five different TV spots, intended to convince New Yorkers that "everyone's a delegate because the outcome affects us all," are to appear in rotation on local broadcast and cable stations, some during donated time and some in slots purchased by the world body at a discount.
Similar appeals are to appear in 1,000 city buses, 1,000 subway cars, 75 telephone kiosks, 250 area commuter rail stations and the three New York airports, said Shashi Tharoor, the U.N. undersecretary-general for public information.
The campaign was created at no cost by McCann Erickson Worldwide and funded by the United Nations and the U.N. Foundation. Tharoor put its value at $3.5 million to $4 million but said the United Nations got it at a tenth of its cost due to the donated creative work and television time.
"The U.N. believes in New York, belongs to New York, and we are very happy that if we matter to New York, that New York also matters to us, and that is something we would like to convey through this campaign," he said.
The U.N. presence in New York contributes $3.2 billion to the economy of the city "after the deduction of unpaid parking tickets," he said, referring to a common cause of friction between New York officials and U.N. diplomats.
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