Let's get depressed

For our sweet advert brief, Chris (my group member), came up with the idea of a charity style ad, showing homeless lame rolos that have been discarded and forgotten about... possibly crying caramel tears, and a strapline similar to "Just 40p could help save 10 rolos"...

I thought this style is quite clever, but depending on the possible mixed reaction we might get, we may have to add in a lighthearted scene at the end of the ad..

Anyway!! i've done some research on some depressing charity ads to see what they do besides showing footage of poor people to twang the heart strings:

This is a typical charity ad, with footage of the less fortunate people in 3rd world countries, with the plea of donating money to help, and gradually getting happier when you get to see what difference the money does (cue, happy kids playing with water and running into the sunset).

This other ad for Christian Aid was very clever, instead of the usual tactic, they've created almost a short story with all the narrative being very informative of the reality of what's going on. It also has the man (supposedly the dad?) looking after the baby, and as the horrible men in suits take away everything, it makes the audience go "OMG! NOOO!!"... I've never seen a charity ad like this until now (at least i dont remember), i like it's originality and doesn't give the "rolling-eyes slightly irritated" reaction that most charity ads do.

Another common tactic in charity ads is using a child's (particularly a child because you feel sorry for them more than adults) experience of poverty. The ad tells the story of the struggle this little girl has to go through to survive...

This Oxfam ad isn't anything like the normal ads, infact i included it because of the animation in it. It has a strong meaning behind it that all these disasters, poverty and other things wrong with the world feed into this giant ugly creature known as injustice, and if you speak up and make a difference, it'll make the world a better place etc... I like the strapline at the end "Be Humankind" conveying that we are all humans, and therefore being human kind, we can look after eachother etc...

SO! This bit of research has shown me different angles to take this charity ad from- typical style so it's recognisably a charity ad, a short story and experience telling. I'm not sure the last example would be as an effective one for the idea we have at the moment.