When kids beat cancer, they can go back to just being a pain in the ass

And I mean that as a loving parent. Whenever my son gets sick (which has been, fortunately, infrequent and minor) he stops doing all those things that drive me crazy — like making messes, noise and chaos in the house. When he starts causing trouble again, I know he’s better.

That simple insight is nicely portrayed in these ads for Kika (a Dutch acronym for “kids cancer free”). They’re also very practical, with no models to pay. But the fact that no children appear in these ads is also strategic, as any parent can visualize his or her child quickly retreating from the scene of the crime.

The execution is a little on the static side, I may have seen something similar in my ravels, and I’m not sure there was a need for three of them. (One named girl and one named boy example would have sufficed.)

But it feels wrong to criticize a campaign with its heart so firmly in the right place.

See two more ads after the break.