I am doing an analysis of the “silver spoon campaign's” printed adverts for the charity Barnardo's. I will be explaining the main strategy in the adverts made by the company Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty. And I will also asses their aims and target audience, how the campaign went and if it, in my opinion, succeeded. I will be assessing the images to tell you how they are represented and how they put the message behind the picture, across.
Barnardo's is a charity for children who are being fostered into care because the parents didn't have financial status to afford a child. The president of Barnardo's is Cherie Blair or also known from her maiden name as Booth. The charity where provided with the money to launch a campaign against poverty, in which a million pounds was spent. The campaign was launched in August of two thousand and three and lasted until October of two thousand and three. The reasons for this are that the campaign was banned as the pictures were offensive to people of the general public.
The advertising complaints commission received around five hundred complaints saying that they were shocked and distressed by the advertisements. They went to the advertising standards agency and the ASA ruled that the advertisements would cause wide spread offence and should not be repeated. One million pound's was spent on the campaign that lasted three months.
The images on the print consist of newly born babies with implements that show a scene, and sense of poverty. The adverts contain babies with objects such as a syringe and mentholated spirits super imposed onto the picture and into the babies mouths another contained a cockroach in his mouth. With this evidence I can see that the main strategy of the campaign is to shock you these are what are known as scare tactics. They want to scare you into reading the text that contains information about their aims. Their aim is to raise awareness of poverty around the UK so they can raise a charitable fortune to put an end to sufferings of people with children living in poverty. They raise issues such as “A child's chances when born into poverty can be dead against him/ her and very much direct you towards a life of crime and drug abuse in later life”.
In these images the babies are on their backs and the photographer (Miles Aldridge) has taken the pictures on an angle looking at the baby from the side. This makes the baby with the image of, for example a cockroach in its mouth look uncared for and not nurtured. Also the positioning of every baby is on its back showing weakness towards the poverty that he/ she must face. All of these connotative meanings represent the weakness of the child
In comparison, one of the images, which is of a baby with a “silver spoon” in its mouth, we see the baby from a birds eye view. This connotative meaning signifies some one watching over the baby like a mother nurturing a baby. There are other connotative meanings such as the colour in the image; it is gold on a soft cushion. The gold in the image signifies wealth and a good upbringing that the child will have because of the benefits of wealth the cushions shows comfort that the child will witness.
In the other images we see that the surface that the babies are on is firm and looks uncomfortable and the back ground in the images are very indistinguishable. It looks like the room is empty and cold. The colours in the image such as a slimy green and a very dull grey/ white wash on the surfaces make you think and feel that the room is cold and empty. The image of the baby drinking mentholated spirits is on a drunken angle that looks and suggests that the baby will be an alcoholic in later life due the conditions of poverty she/ he has grown up in. the syringe suggests drug abuse, and the cock roach signifies poor living conditions.
These images are trying to get you to read the text in the image. In this text it contains a lot underlying emotion that it try's to draw from. For example the text next to the images it will contain the name of the baby and how old it is. This makes you feel emotionally drawn to the circumstances that the text outlines that the baby with have to cope with. The photographer in a way takes away the innocence of the baby with the images of drug abuse and the text gives the baby back its innocence and draws you to feel more for the child. The text in one of the images say's, “If only poverty didn't crush the spirit, hopes and joy of thousands of children every year. If only poverty didn't rob them of the choices of a positive future.”
