http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/nov/09/voluntarysector18
How to get shock value for money
Nicola Hill speaks to Ed Jones, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, about the use charities can make of advertising to further their cause.
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 November 2000 10.49 GMT
- Article history
"Read this you piece of shit."
So ran an eye-catching advertisement run by Anti-Slavery International in 1995. It is also the image selected by Saatchi & Saatch to lure readers to its new book on social campaigning, Social Work.
"Shock is now considered an approach to be used with caution," says Ed Jones, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. He warns of compassion fatigue but says using painful images is sometimes unavoidable. An example he draws on is Italy's Greenpeace ad, Women and Children First, which shows a baby's head hideously deformed as a result of his mother having been exposed to 'harmless' radiation fallout from earlier tests in Soviet Kazakhstan.
In contrast, he points to the recent adverts by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, (NSPCC) which depict children's icons, such as the Spice Girls and Alan Shearer, the footballer, shielding their eyes from painful events. "Using the viewers' imagination can be the most powerful tool possible," he says.
However, most charities cannot run to the advertising budget enjoyed by NSPCC. Jones says they should not be deterred. "Big ideas" he says, "can turn small budgets into powerful campaigns."
Jones cites the example of a London creative team who used a single poster to help ban .22 calibre handguns. After the massacre of schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, parliament was introducing a law to ban certain firearms, but not .22 handguns. The team, with no money and no time, decided to act.
They discovered that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated with a .22 gun. Using a stock photograph of Kennedy, they had a poster printed to go on a lorry parked outside parliament on the day of the debate. "If a .22 handgun is less deadly," it asked, "why isn't he less dead?" An amendment was added to include the banning of .22 guns.
When money is tight, voluntary organisations that spend on advertising want a definite return on their investment. Jones says: "Decide on your objective and aim your message at powerful people. You need a spectacular advertisement which will get the issue on journalists' agendas."
However, Jones insists that social advertisements must be rigorously checked. "On any contentious issue, the smallest inaccuracy will be seized upon by opponents and used to discredit the argument."
Jones's advice overall is to be adventurous. "Your message has to be really powerful and life-transforming, otherwise you are wasting your money."
• Ed Jones joined Saatchi and Saatchi in London as a copywriter in 1984. From 1990 - 97 he was director of the Middle East region during the Gulf War and then moved on to be central and eastern Europe regional creative director. Since the beginning of 2000 he has been based in London as the creative director for Saatchi and Saatchi worldwide.
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