Illustrate in Which Ways the Barnardo's Advertising Campaign was Successful

Authors Avatar

Illustrate in Which Ways the Barnardo’s Advertising Campaign was Successful

Thomas John Barnardo, born in Dublin, 1845, followed to become one of the most famous men in Victorian history. In 1861, at the age of 16, Thomas John Barnardo decided to train as a doctor in London. He saw London as a struggling, over-populated, diseased city. His first step was to start a ragged school in the East End, and from then on, a home for boys and girls in 1870. Thomas Barnardo believed that family life was the best way to bring up children, and his attitude has been brought forward to this very day.

The very early advertising campaigns to come from the charity were simple, showing an easy to understand before and after Barnardo’s treatment of a child in and out of poverty.

However, more modern campaigns, such as the 2000-2001 campaigns, were very different. I shall take my first example, John Donaldson, the ‘Heroin Baby’.

This advert is structured around a young baby showing up the veins on his arm to inject heroin. The advert is emphasising on shock tactics, to surprise the audience and make them notice the charity. As is common in many of the Barnardo's adverts, the child is in the centre of the image, the focal point. The lighting also focuses on the child so highlighting it. The tiles on the floor, the corner of the wall and the pipes all pointing toward the child. All these factors bring the child into the main focal point of the picture.

Join now!

The child is in a public toilet, a very grotty, dirty and unpleasant environment, which makes it ironic when a clean, healthy baby is placed in the area. Dark, dull colours are used outside of the child, dirty terracotta tiles, dirty, grey walls, yet a white nappy and pale child. This again brings the baby into view. The age of the child is told as an age much older then the child obviously is, which emphasises that a poor upbringing will lead to inevitable poverty, and makes the shock tactics even more adamant.

The next image I will ...

This is a preview of the whole essay