New Save the Children Advert

[Pete Smith]

Here is the new SC ad called ‘Censored’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBI5l6d993M&feature=youtu.be

My personal opinion is that this is the best TV ad I’ve seen from SC for a long time. I think it’s intelligent and emotional, without crossing those lines we all know about.

When I first joined SC in the 1990s, I spend my first period working closely with the Fundraising team. I was hugely impressed by how informed their discussions were in relation to the ‘shock v raise awareness’ debate. Everyone seemed to know about and have opinions on our advertising since the beginning – I’m sure I was passed a copy of Eglantyne’s ads in my first week. But there were also stats on different types of direct mail campaigns and how they had worked, stats on how real ‘compassion fatigue’ was with different donor groups, and the complex relationship with the campaigns of other NGOs. I remember John Lister who ran direct mail then (nominative determinism?) explaining his target was to produce the most effective Christmas mailing and deliver it SECOND of all the major NGOs.The first one would get ‘they’ve started early this year’ no matter what the date was, the third one was ‘we get too many of these nowadays’. The sweet spot was to come second in the race, which was actually a really hard thing to plan.

I dropped off SC mailing lists and watching TV advertising when I spent 9 years in the middle east. When I came back to the UK I was quite shocked as to where TV advertising had moved to,. I personally feel much warmer with this.

[Mike Aaronson]

Pete, I agree. This really moved me. It strikes the right balance between showing the horror of war and its effects on children, and inspiring the hope that we can do something to alleviate the worst effects.

[Pete Smith]

The things that impressed me were the ‘Censored’ screen shots – we know what’s there; we don’t need to see it again -and possibly most of all, the call to action at the end. Search Save the Children. In other words, go and find our more about this yourself. Knowing the cost of TV advertising, the temptation must have been to ask for money, but I think this is much stronger. I assume this is the first in a campaign, and of course at some point money must come into it, but I think this was both an emotional and thought provoking start.

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