The ads making Colombian guerrillas lonely this Christmas Poster children: the adverts ask guerrillas to return home Bullets and bombs are not the only ammunition used in the war in the Colombian jungle. The struggle against guerrilla forces is also being waged with the help of an advertising agency. The Colombian Ministry of Defence plans to launch a new propaganda campaign in the coming days designed to encourage guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, to demobilise. This week Farc announced a one-month unilateral ceasefire for the five-decades long drug-fuelled conflict that has killed almost a quarter of a million people. To draw rebels out of the jungle and into the towns, the defence ministry will host a holiday festival in San Vicente del Caguán, a former Farc headquarters. On the path out of the jungle, guerrilla forces will see posters with baby pictures that the Colombian ad agency Lowe SSP3 collected from some of their mothers. "Antes de ser guerrillero, eres mi hijo," the posters read. The translation: Before being a guerrilla, you are my son. When the soldiers reach the town and flick on the television, they are likely to see a commercial with the same tagline featuring the mothers of four soldiers looking through photographs and praying. "I want you next to me, not just your photo next to me," a woman sings. A radio spot is also planned. The marketing effort is the fourth in a series of campaigns from Interpublic's Lowe SSP3 since the Colombian government turned to the agency - whose clients include Unilever and Red Bull - to complement its military, political and legal efforts. "It was a challenge we needed to accept because it is something that we need to do for our country," says Jose Miguel Sokoloff, chief creative officer of the agency, whose teams have been threatened by Farc. They will travel into the jungle to execute the campaigns in Blackhawk helicopters and Kevlar vests, with army and navy protection. "A peaceful solution to our conflict is a lot better than a bloodier one," he adds. This gives us a chance to affect the outcome of the conflict doing what we do, which is to communicate. Lowe SSP3 began by talking to demobilised guerrillas, learning that the "guerrilla is as much a prisoner of the organisation as even the people he holds hostage," Mr Sokoloff says. The agency noticed that the number of people who demobilised peaked during Christmas because they missed their home and their families. Based on that insight, the first holiday-themed campaign, called "Operation Christmas," launched in 2012. Working with professional anti-guerrilla forces, the agency selected 10 strategically located giant trees in the depths of the jungle and covered them with 2,000 Christmas lights that lit up when people walked past, along with a sign that read: "If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home. Demobilise at Christmas. Anything is possible. The next year, Lowe SSP3 launched its "Rivers of Light" campaign. Knowing that rivers are heavily used by the guerrilla forces, the agency sent out floating, illuminated plastic spheres that contained messages from people all around the country asking them to demobilise and reunite with their families. While the award-winning campaigns have been credited with helping encourage thousands of guerrillas to return to society, advertising has not been the only tactic driving the demobilisation. Some young guerrillas fall into the fighting by accident and are more susceptible to marketing, but others have been brainwashed or are motivated by a sense of economic injustice and marginalisation. Mr Sokoloff says the work reminds him how constructive advertising can be. "People ask me all the time, what do you think about selling toothpaste after this?" he says. Our profession is about changing something, be it that you change the perception of a brand or be it that you change some behaviour.