Discuss how some advertising agencies use shock tactics to gain the audiences attention. Evaluate this technique with reference to one campaign - Barnardos.

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Discuss how some advertising agencies use shock tactics to gain the audiences attention. Evaluate this technique with reference to one campaign.

Advertising agencies use shock tactics in their advertisements so that the audience would recognise the issue raised in the campaigns. Agencies do this so the audience feel sorry, guilty, horrified and make them see beyond their own lives.

Barnardos have a reputation for using shock tactics in their advertising campaigns. They were forced to axe a pre-Christmas advertising campaign after the Advertising Standards Authority ruled the content to be too shocking. The campaign featured computer-generated images of newborn babies with cockroaches, syringes and methylated spirits in their mouths. It shows that these babies have the odds stacked against them before they even leave hospital: they are more likely to grow up to be addicted to alcohol and drugs, become the victims and perpetrators of crime and to be homeless. This advertising campaign was prepared by BBH advertising agency and cost around one million pounds to produce. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received four hundred and sixty six complaints, which was a record for the most complained about advert; three previous campaigns for Barnardo's generated complaints, but the ASA ruled on each occasion that they should be allowed to go ahead. Barnardos thought that the audience would be able to look beyond the challenging images and realise that the real issue is the shocking fact that the UK has some of the worst child poverty of all developed nations. However the ASA's argument was that the adverts might encourage people to mistreat children or themselves.
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There were four adverts released. One of the four did not upset the public because it showed a nice baby, well dressed with a silver spoon in it's mouth and the message "If only every child in the UK was born with a silver spoon". The baby looks happy and loved, this picture has the connotations of upper class. The other three pictures shows the babies with harmful objects in their mouths, this shows that they are living in poor conditions, unloved, unclean, and that they are born into a drug addiction or alcoholism environment. These adverts make ...

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