Barnardos. Silver Spoons.

By Bartle Bogle Hegarty.


Article from The Guardian by Claire Cozens
Wednesday 12 November 2003 14.01 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/12/childrensservices.advertising1

Dozens of people have contacted the advertising watchdog to complain about Barnardo's new campaign just hours after the shock image of a newborn baby with a cockroach in its mouth first appeared.

The Advertising Standards Authority said it had already received 30 complaints about the advert, which appeared in some tabloid newspapers this morning.
It showed a full-page image of a newborn baby with a hospital tag around its wrist and a large cockroach crawling out of its mouth. The strapline read, "There are no silver spoons for children born into poverty".
Other ads in the campaign feature a baby with a syringe, and one with a bottle of methylated spirits poking out of its mouth.

The children's charity has a history of courting controversy, most famously when it used images of a 10-month-old baby injecting heroin in a press campaign.
The Committee on Advertising Practice, which advises advertisers on the industry's code of conduct, took the rare step of writing to newspaper editors to advise them the image could contravene its taste and decency guidelines.

But Andrew Nebel, the director of marketing and communications for Barnardo's, insisted the charity's shock tactics were justified and said it had worked closely with the regulator in preparing its campaign.

"Barnardo's work involves dealing with shocking issues. This latest campaign in particular deals with child poverty, which the public is almost in denial about. We needed to overcome public apathy about poverty in Britain," he said.

"We don't have much money to spend, so we are looking for high levels of awareness from a relatively small campaign."

Mr Nebel said some complaints were inevitable and compared the strategy to "Bob Geldof's famous four-letter exhortation", which galvanised the public into action over the famine in Ethiopia.
The last Barnardo's campaign, which showed images of adult suicides and tragic deaths with the line "saving children from a living death", attracted around 20 complaints but was cleared by the ASA.

The latest campaign is aimed at raising awareness of child poverty and coincides with new government figures showing one in three children in Britain, and nearly half of all London children, now live in poverty.