There are many types of media which charities advertise their organisations on, for example, television, radio, billboards, print media, etc. On television we see the conditions of place where people live and sleep. They normally show us the poor people and how sad they are living in these unhygienic places. They try to show us the poorest place in the world so we feel sorry for them and give a donation. On the radio we hear such advertising campaigns from the RSPCA and Oxfam. These charities are for animals and children and ask for a donation of £1 or £2 a month which can help a lot. Radio adverts are rather short and don’t have pictures so hearing them on the radio wouldn’t be as efficient as looking at the real conditions. Charities also advertise by putting up advertising on billboards, so we can see them in big and feel more sorry for the people. Some organisations print out posters and leaflets so we can read in depth about the charities and what they do. On the television, radio or billboards we can’t see the important information. I think we should be able to read about it in more detail so we can see what they are really about, and we don’t waste our money donating it to useless charities.
Other types of advertising which surrounds us is food, clothes and music, etc. Food products carry on them labels which tell us, if we read carefully, that they support a particular charity and that we should too. Clothes often have labels too, they state that they give around 1 or 2% of their profit made from the item of clothing to their particular charity. It’s all around the world they do this, and they make us think by buying that item of clothing we have made some sort of donation too. In music, there’s lots of songs about peace and harmony and they remind us what is going on, on the other side of the world. Songs are more fun and interesting to listen to, so this way of advertising is more fun and more better.
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Charities advertise mostly by the print media because it is cheap and effective. It is also an easier way of advertising because people keep in their heads what they have just read. If the advert was on radio or television they would forget it as they have only seen it once or twice before, but they can keep leaflets if they want to make a donation, we can’t pause the television if we want to see the number again. On the posters, charitable organisations can use pictures and imagery to show us what we can help out on and the phone number or web-site and e-mail address will stick to the paper and won’t go away like televisions. If a charitable organisation wanted to advertise in newspapers, I think it would go for the local ones. I think this because people usually read local newspapers and wouldn’t read national ones. But if they wanted to get donations from all over the world or country, they could advertise in national newspapers as it gets to everyone in the country. If a charity is in a certain area and would only like to get donations from certain areas, they could advertise in local newspapers as it would go to everyone in the local area.
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Comparing these two adverts makes, Christian Aid and Christian Children’s Fund, you can see that both organisations want us to donate money to their charity. Both of them are Christian organisations and help poor people who live in undeveloped countries and places. Both organisations give a full in-depth study of what their organisations do to fulfil their goals and how we can donate money. They are both similar and ask for donations.
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This Christian Aid advertisement shows me a picture of two full page cans. It is a bright red colour which stands out from the rest of the page, so it catches your eyes attention. Something like this would make us immediately get up and read the full leaflet. When we start to read the full leaflet we see the other 4 pictures and we can see what the leaflet is really about. We can see it is not really about coke cans or drinking coke, that we really must have thought it was about, but it is about people of the third world who suffer from dehydration because of lack of fresh and clean water.
After reading the full leaflet the reader would understand that people in third world countries only have “Fresh Air” to drink. The line underneath the “Fresh Air” logo is “The only thing.” When the word ‘only’ is underlined it shows that it’s the one thing they get and nothing else. Underneath this big logo, which looks like the original “Coca Cola” logo, there is a short message which says, “Dying for a drink? Imagine if this was all you had to drink today.” This shows what people in the third world have to do all their lives.
The other 4 pictures show us that the poor people have to work hard just to get fresh water and grow healthy food. This makes us feel sorry for them and persuades us to give a donation to the charity. By highlighting the important words in bold letters, helps us see more easily the real situation in Mali, which is where the people are located. “Waking every morning,” “constant fear,” “not having enough water,” “1.1 billion people,” “One-sixth of the world’s population.” These words, all highlighted, in the leaflet were the first thing I saw when I looked through it. And because they were words that had powerful meanings, I just immediately felt sorry for them as others would. Seeing the number of people that have suffered would trigger anyone’s emotions and they would just feel as though they have to give a donation.
Some words that have been said by people of the third world have been put into bold and bigger typing to make us see what it is like for them. Hawa Amadu says, “Sometimes I go without food so that my children have water… So we will have to drink air.” This particular quote has been enlarged to fit one quarter of the page so when we go to open up the first page, which is the coke can, the first thing we see is the bold writing which reads what Hawa Amadu has said.
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In the Christian Children’s Fund advertisement, the one and only picture on the advertisement is of a little girl called Amie. At the beginning of this leaflet it says, “Amie has a Mother and Father who love her…” Then it tells the short story of how they live in The Gambia, one of the least developed countries in the world, and how they can’t feed her daughter. It is pretty much the same story as the Christian Aids leaflet, but that one has got more pictures and a lot of people who tell their individual stories. This leaflet is based on only one person, but says that she doesn’t get enough food and water and doesn’t get any education.
Amie looks really sad and unhelpful in the picture and this makes us sad and makes us feel as though we have to give donation. As the pictures in the other Christian Aids leaflet shows older people working for food and water, this advertisement shows us a unhelpful little girl that can’t do anything with herself because she is too small to do it. She looks about three years old and looks weak and unhealthy.
The type of letter font on this advertisement is smaller than the font on the Christian Aids advert. The only things that is written in bold and clear writing is the beginning and end bit which says, “Amie has a Mother and Father who love her…so why does she need a sponsor like you?” These words are set out in a way which tells the first part of her situation and then the next part. The bit in the beginning says, “Amie has a Mother and Father who love her…” and at the end of the story it says, “…so why does she need a sponsor like you?” I think it is set out like this because normally we read the big and bold parts which stick out, it makes us realise after we have read the full story what it was about. To persuade us into sponsoring a child, the advertisers have to make the appearance of the advertisement look stylish and creative.
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Nowadays, some adverts can be a bit too much for viewing. Some adverts may have distorting images which may be hard too view. Some adverts have pictures of people with one eye, arm or leg, others may show dead people which were fighting for their lives and some may show very skinny people which haven’t eaten for days and days. These pictures or images can ruin someone and they may not be able to watch. And if they cannot watch they may miss which organisation the advertisement was from, and they might miss all important information necessary for making the donation. Adverts before used to be general pictures of what it was like living in poor countries, it would show the dirty villages and people working hard to get a glass of water. But now these mind disturbing images just waste advertising time.
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Both the advertisements use such language and persuasive devices that make us interested in what they do and make us give a donation. They use persuasive techniques such as, facts and opinions, statistics, repetition, rhetorical questions and imagery. Facts always make the viewer aware of what is going on in third world countries and opinions make us think more about what we should do to help out the poor people. Statistics are like facts and opinions but are arranged in numbers, these numbers show us how much we could give to help the poor or it could show us how many poor people there are in the world. Repetition just reminds us to make a donation which can help, for example, we may be reading a long advertisement on the charity and may forget to that it mentions something about a donation. In this case mentioning it again may remind us to make one, and they always put a phone number next to it so we can call it. When viewing pictures of the actual conditions in the country, we think they deserve some money for working hard in making some food. The advertisement normally shows us pictures of people working hard for food and fresh water, this encourages us into making a donation because we think they are really trying to work hard for their own food and water. Both of the advertisements have very large pictures which we can see very clearly and I think this is good because it gets more noticed.
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From the two advertisements, I think the one that would get more donations would be Christian Aid. This advertisement has loads of pictures or imagery and it has two large pictures on the front of it. The fact that it has been made into a leaflet is also a good idea because I think it can fit in more information about the charity. Having two pages to display information is also a good idea because this also saves loads of money. The Christian Children’s Fund advertisement has only one picture of a girl unlike the Christian Aid advertisement, which has loads of pictures featuring people working hard to grow their own crops and building wells to get their own fresh water. The important facts of the Christian Aid advertisement stick out as they have printed it in bolder text and it is easier to read because the writing and font is quite clear too. As I already explained before, the pictures are quite big and colourful so they attract more people to it than the Christian Children’s Fund which is quite plain and simple.
As the National Lottery have now started donating money to charities, it has become a greater competition for the other organisations. The National Lottery is also known world wide and gets more attention than other organisations because it is well known for giving away money.
