more from interview with Andres Velasco

Among the people behind the [1988] opposition campaign were a team of ad people, journalists, economists, and data analysts who came together to brainstorm. I was a small part of that. The symbol of our campaign was a rainbow. The slogan of the campaign, which to this day sounds a bit “much,” was simply “Happiness is coming.” And the campaign emphasized young people, walking down the street together, running on beaches, something like the old Coca-Cola ads but it was important, and it worked. There was another ad that was remarkably subtle but powerful. It just shows faces of boys singing in a school choir. The camera pans across the choir: all the boys are blonde and blue-eyed and singing in a foreign language, until the camera comes on one boy with brown eyes and brown hair and it stops, and you see that the boy is struggling and doesn’t know the words to the song. The camera pulls back and the voice-over says simply: “Exiled. Never again.” You didn't need to say more. Everyone in Chile knew people who were exiled in far off lands, and knew that they wanted to return. Many would return… but many would not.