ASDRA rates every debate promise live — Cannes Gold, Gran Ojo Creative Data

ASDRA had spent over ten years asking politicians for the same things — a personal-support law, official statistics on people with Down syndrome, inclusive education, a new disability law — without results. Argentina's 2023 election debates were the one moment all candidates had to make promises in public.

An AI 'complexity index' scored each presidential-debate promise for how hard it would be to implement — then replied with ASDRA's own simpler, still-unmet demands.

During the televised presidential debate, VML Argentina's AI analysed each candidate's proposals in real time and tweeted them a percentage score of how complicated — or impossible — each promise would be to carry out, alongside ASDRA's own simpler, cheaper asks. The action ran on X with digital outdoor support across Buenos Aires kiosks.

The hijack turned a debate watched for politics into a platform for disability rights. It won Gold in Creative Data at Cannes Lions 2024, the Gran Ojo Creative Data at El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2024, and a Gold plus Special Mention for social transformation at FIAP 2024.

For more than a decade, ASDRA, Argentina's Down syndrome association, had asked politicians for the same concrete things: a personal-support law, official data on how many Argentines have Down syndrome, genuinely inclusive schooling and a modern disability law. Promises came and went; none were kept.

With VML Argentina, the association launched 'Promesas Absurdas' (Absurd Promises) in early 2023. The centrepiece was a complexity index: during the televised presidential debate, AI analysed each proposal live and tweeted candidates a percentage showing how difficult — sometimes impossible — their promises would be to implement.

Each score was paired with one of ASDRA's own promises: requests that were, by contrast, simple and cheap to honour. Proposals like abolishing the central bank or reordering public finances within a year were graded next to 'count how many people with Down syndrome exist' — and the contrast did the arguing.

The work won Gold in Creative Data at Cannes Lions 2024, the Gran Ojo Creative Data at El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2024, and top honours for social transformation at FIAP 2024, making it one of the most awarded advocacy ideas in Latin America that year.

It converted Argentina's most-watched political broadcast into the campaign's media buy, at no media cost.

The complexity index made the contrast quantitative and tweetable — everyone could see which promises were actually easy.

ASDRA asked for things simpler than what candidates volunteered, so the burden of explanation shifted onto the politicians.

Real-time scoring turned passive viewers into participants who could demand the easy promises be kept.

Don't ask for a slot in the news cycle — build a metric that makes your cause the most readable part of an event everyone is already watching.

Promesas Absurdas became Argentina's first Cannes Gold of 2024 and went on to take the Gran Ojo Creative Data at El Ojo 2024, plus metals at FIAP and the NYF AME Awards. ASDRA continues to campaign for the same four demands, now backed by the visibility the campaign created.