Comparing Two Charity Advertisements

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Jay Parekh 10YG

-GCSE Media Essay-

Comparing Two Charity Advertisements

In this essay I will be comparing the advertising leaflet for Christian Aid with the leaflet produced by The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). This essay will be analysing how the different charities try to persuade us, the audience to change our views, make the people want to do something to help them and the difficulties these charities face. I will be examining and commenting on the effectiveness of these adverts.

The RSPCA are a charity organization set up to help animals in Britain and Christian Aid helps out people and children Worldwide. We need these charities because they help people in need and they also support communities. We need charities to help people who cannot support themselves because everyone deserves to have a life of their own which they can enjoy. We give to charities for many reasons, but the main reason we give to charities is because we feel guilty. We feel guilty because we are so well off and we take our houses, Television and having food and water for granted. However, people in third world countries can not even afford to have a roof above their head and in some extreme cases of poverty they can not afford food and clean water. Some people give for compassion. This is when they sympathise with these people and animals and they feel sorry for them so they give money because they want to help them. However, some people give because of their religious belief. Muslims give to charities because of Zakat, one of the pillars of Islam. It reminds Muslims of the fact that whatever wealth they may possess is due to the blessings of Allah and it should  be spent according to the His commands. Some people give to charity because they believe it is their moral duty to give to charity. In addition some people give to charities because they want people to think they are generous and they want to be recognized as that and get praise for it.

There are hundreds of different charities which help out in different ways. These different charities include charities that support animal rights, environmental agencies and pressure groups, humanitarian charities, medical charities and child protection. The spectrum of human emotion can be manipulated visually and imaginatively. Pictures can be formed mentally from descriptive words or even statistics. Charities use this to their advantage, this works extremely well. It is their greatest technique for persuasion. Charities constantly need to advertise due to competition. There are hundreds of charities which help different causes and this is why there are so many different charities to give to which shows there is so much competition. On top of this there is the National Lottery. Since the national lottery there has been a decrease in the number of people giving to charity. The National Lottery is a huge profit making organisation and out of this they profit they do give to charity. However they only give a small proportion of their money to charity and recently there has been some controversy on which charities they give to. Most charities also do not get government funding which means they rely on the public to donate money to keep their charity running. Charities advertise in various ways. These include the broadcast media which could be television or Radio, Print Media which consists of billboards, posters, newspaper (tabloids and broadsheets) and magazines; we can also include advertising on the internet.

Advertising is very important in our culture and is always around us. Everything is advertised varying from houses to the clothes we wear and films we watch. Advertisements are a way to persuade people to do what you want them to do, whether it is to donate to tour charity or to buy your product. Advertisements have been around for centuries, one of the first advertisements was in a newspaper in 1704. This shows   how long they have been around and how long people have had to learn how to manipulate them to their advantage.

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Charities mainly use the print media option because it cheaper than television and radio advertisement. Also print media is more easily accessible to everybody unlike radio and television. This may also be advantageous because instead of having to write out a cheque the print media will probably have a tear off slip which can be more convenient to send off. This has been used in the RSPCA leaflet.

Charities target people who are financially stable and socially and globally aware of the problems people face in the world. This is because these sorts of people are more likely ...

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