Emotive charity advertising – has the public had enough?

When was the last time you watched a charity advert the whole way through and then donated? Was it last night after the soaps or before the news? No, me neither.

In a world so saturated with adverts, we often switch off at the best of times, never mind when we are being asked to eradicate poverty in the whole of the Southern Hemisphere for just £3 a month.

Yes, those adverts are from charities who are doing incredible work, but are they the most effective way to grab our attention? I spoke to fundraising experts, charities and a psychologist to find out.

Co-founder of Regarding Humanity, Linda Raftree believes that adverts we’ve previously been used to seeing – of hopeless people in poverty – aren’t effective in solving the issues charities are seeking to address. They don’t empower or create sustainable change, she says.

“We know that organisations need to raise funds for their work, but when it comes to such advertising and campaign imagery, they’re often acting detrimentally to their long-term goals,” says Raftree.

“The third sector needs to modernise and mature a little in terms of how it represents the people is supporting and supposedly helping,”

Raftree, talks of such adverts as “poverty-porn” and as being part of much larger issues in the aid industry.

She is part of the Rusty Radiator Awards panel - a Norwegian initiative which takes a comical look at charity videos that overdo stereotyping. Golden Radiator Awards are given to those who do the opposite.

The awards were founded in 2013 after a tongue-in-cheek Africa for Norway video created by The Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH) became a viral hit.

In the video, created to make charities think about the way they represent their beneficiaries in the developing world, Africans are seen watching images of cold Norwegians and are donating radiators to help during the Nordic winters. So far, the video has 2.4m views on Youtube.

Kristoffe Kinge, vice-president at SAIH, says that stereotyping of this nature in the media and in fundraising, creates an “us and them” feeling about beneficiaries and serves to divorce people from feeling connected to those who might need charity assistance.

“When we start to think that we are so substantially different from other people, it becomes easier to accept that people are suffering – we believe these images that are shown in advertising and fundraising campaigns create apathy rather than action,” he says.

Being humorous, creative, or both, without over-simplifying the issues and also showing the structural reasons behind poverty, is the way forward, he says.

“Humour is universal – if you look at the nominees for the Golden Radiator award they have done lots of different things. They’re very good at humour and they let people tell their own stories,” offers Kinge.

Making it relevant to users and donors

Plan UK, which won a Golden Radiator Award last year for its “I’ll take it from here – because I am a girl” campaign, believes that empowerment of beneficiaries is the key to good charity advertising campaigns.

The multi-awarding winning stop-motion animation film is about the importance of education for girls.

It’s narrated by, and follows the journey of, 12-year-old Brendar from Malawi. She talks about her hopes and dreams and what she could achieve by staying in school, then shows a sobering insight into the reality of her day-to-day life.

The film ends by explaining how the audience can make her dreams come true and empower her to help others like her by “giving her a chance and letting her take it from here.”

Sally Wrench, brand and marketing communications manger at Plan UK, says: “If we are trying to empower children to realise their rights we need to make sure they feel empowered by the way we talk about them.”

The psychology behind giving

Psychologist Nathalie Nahai is in agreement. She believes that if a charity creates a story like the one featuring Brendar, the public can then draw similarities between their own lives and hers. They can attempt to somehow relate.

“The public now responds much better if they can follow a concrete and tangible impact in a charity advert,” she says. “The most effective charity adverts feature just one person. If the advert shows just one single person, it feels more real and therefore has more of an impact.”

The future

Raftree agrees: “I think the challenge for the charity sector is to really open up platforms and spaces to hear authentic stories from the forefront.”

She refers to the work of photographer Brandon Stanton who has been out in Iraq and Syria to tell people’s stories. “He has a very to-the-point way of telling the story and it is very dignified,” she says.

“That type of storytelling is great – where you can support from the outside. It means you are not hijacking the cause or stepping in and showing yourself as the hero, that is the way charities should work going forward.”

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