The day a smile stopped São Paulo

Original post: November 13, 2010

São Paulo is one of the busiest cities in the world, with more than 12 million habitants. It’s specially notorious by its crazy traffic that can extend through thousands of miles.

Traffic is never synonymous of joy, but what if it could be!? This morning, eleven radio stations played at exactly 9am a recording asking people to smile to the driver by their side.

There are no subtitles, but the message goes somewhat like this:

“At this moment, millions of people are in their cars, listening to the radio. Everyone seems so serious, asleep, until an inspiration can change everything. We invite you to smile at the other driver by your side. If they’re listening to this, they will smile back.

This was part of a broader advertisement campaign, but hey, if you have to listen to an ad anyway, I’d rather much more listen to one that will make me smile.