Holly Powell - Final Major Project
What's a Social Awareness Campaign?
When thinking about social awareness, campaigns usually surround around advertisements that are able to evoke a reaction from the audience and make them feel so strongly about the issue that they want to help promote a change in society. Being socially aware is about understanding what's going on around us and how we can help change things that are going on, because not enough people are up to date about the different issues playing out around us and therefore have to be informed. Some people are completely ignorant to what's going on around them, so they needed to be shocked into realising how their actions are taking a toll on others and can be hindering everyone else's efforts instead of helping them. By creating social awareness campaigns, we are educating those who don't know too much about the problems around them, and those who don't bother to contribute to changing society even though they know that they have the ability to. Social awareness campaigns help to tell people the facts and figures about specific issues, and create an emotion strong enough instead them to not only change their perspective on an issue, but make them want to do something in order to make the problem smaller. They usually use persuasive tactics to make the audience scared or surprised, because by doing this, it makes them feel something and their opinion on the matter intensifies.
Looking at the Role of Advertising in Social Awareness, it details different examples of campaigns, mainly looking at Anti-Smoking, Animal Cruelty Prevention, Child Abuse Awareness and Auto Safety.
The impact of Anti-Smoking campaigns in media shows that out of 17 countries who participated in the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, 14 countries had the higher amount of people intent to quit smoking directly linked to the awareness provided by the media, compared to the other 3 countries, where the lower amount was due to having no knowledge of the campaign advertisements.
This shows that the adverts play on the subconscious of viewers and changes their opinion of smoking, due to being more informed about the consequences on themselves and others, where as those that aren't exposed to the media campaigns
aren't as worried, because their ignorance shields the belief that they aren't doing any harm. Exposing viewers to the truth makes them absorb the information, even if they don't want to listen, and makes them begin thinking about the effect that their decisions have on their health and the health of others. Using hard facts and making the audience feel guilty by exaggerating how dark the smoking habit can be helps to make most people realise that it's not worth the damage they could be inflicting upon themselves and others - the campaigns use these methods to make the adverts stick in these people's minds, knowing that using a soft approach by just telling them the benefits of smoking doesn't work as well. They try to scare their audience into realising the harm, even
though it's all truthful anyway - by playing on these facts, it shows the viewers the harsh reality of their actions, because the issue can be really dark, so the best way to get through to people is by playing on their fears.
I think that these type of advertisements are effective because they help to open people's eyes - it's a good way to show them the damage they're doing to their bodies and the pain they could be inflicting on others (such as second hand smoke), because telling someone over and over that smoking is bad isn't going to make them worry too much. By striking fear into the viewers and showing them the exact harm they're causing, and in some instances even showing them how horrible the cigarettes are too in terms of the chemicals going into their body, plus the reality of diseases such as lung cancer, it helps to make them feel guilty enough that they never want to look at another cigarette in their life, let alone smoke one. I think sometimes the audience has to be scared or made to feel guilty in order to show how wrong an issue is in society, as otherwise not many people would take a lot of notice - if it's not causing that much harm, they wouldn't want to change anything. Showing them the brutality of the impact of issues and making them realise they can be put in danger just as much as anyone else makes them realise that they shouldn't continue to live in the way that they do, and that it can be stopped by their contribution of quitting their bad habits, such as smoking.
This poster looks at the anti-smoking slogan 'I want to live not to die', as it slowly burns away due to the cigarettes being smoked each time. The quote burns down to the last word 'die', to show that with each cigarette you smoke, you are getting closer to death.
The colours used are very basic - the black background helps to make the cigarettes stand out and the quote slowly burning to be replaced with ash is subtle but sends a strong message. There doesn't need to be anything over the top with this photo, because the quote is enough to make an audience realise that with every cigarette, the end is getting nearer and nearer.
I think this idea is quite clever because the message isn't too complex, but the execution is fascinating. Being about to infer exactly what the campaigner is trying to get across just by using a quote looks professional. The audience doesn't need to be told what it means because they already know, and it's a good way to become a part of someone's subconscious - the photo sticks in your mind because of it's originality, and the lack of words makes it even easier to remember. This creates a sense of guilt for those that know they smoke and are wasting their life away, because every cigarette is bringing them one step closer to death.
Animal Cruelty Prevention campaigns show the abuse inflicted upon animals through images, displaying injuries and maltreatment. All of those that are animal lovers would constantly be deeply effected, not understanding how someone could be so cruel to injury a defenceless animal, who's done no harm and never intended to. ASPCA and PETA are two companies
strongly trying to prevent crime towards animals, and has created many campaigns to get their point across.
By showing these photos of poor animals, it's intended to make the viewers feel extreme sympathy for the creatures, as they have no idea why they're being attacked and can't really stick up for themselves against someone so much bigger than them. All animal lovers who see adverts like this immediately are angered, and this helps provoke society into making sure those who commit animal cruelty pay the price. It also warns the public of the pain that these animals are put through, to make those who have abused animals before think about what they've done and the guilt they should feel from it, plus trying to make sure it doesn't happen again. As previously mentioned, the best methods to advertising is to seek emotion from the viewer, to scare them, make them feel guilty or make them angry, enough so that they want to change their ways and do something positive to help put a stop to the issue being campaigned about. It also shows how fragile the animals are, and how they need to be looked after instead of being abused or neglected - it makes all of the audience feel bad for the animals that have been hurt, because most pet-owners would hate if something like that happened to their pet, with someone hurting and harming it, to the point of broken bones or needing life-saving surgery.
I believe that enraging animal lovers is a good way to get the point across - there are still animals out in the world being treated cruelly, and we all need to come together to make sure they are put through any more harm. Making them angry means that animal-lovers would want to make a change, and they would want to find those that mistreat animals, so that no more animals would have to suffer. Playing on guilt is also an effective method of campaigning because it will always play on the audience's subconscious and make them want to do something for the benefit of getting things off their chest and knowing that they've handled their responsibilities well by helping to make a difference.
This poster shocked me, because the idea of using a photo of a dog being placed in an oven is heartbreaking and absolutely horrible - it left me confused and angry, because I could never understand how someone would ever find it acceptable to place an animal in an environment and neglect them so badly in this way. However, I understood the message - the poster is to shock the audience. Placing a dog in an oven is a ridiculous idea, but the correlation between this and a hot car is virtually the same. For any animal lover, it would be unacceptable to put a poor dog through these types of conditions, but for those that are too ignorant to understand why this is wrong, it aims to show them that what they're doing is the same as setting the dog up to die.
The use of the colour red for the background is interesting because it relates to the colour used for heat. Red is typically related to when something's too hot, and blue is related to something which is too cold, like on a thermostat. The use of the red helps to intensify the idea of the oven, as it aims to enhance the point even further and show just how horrible the situation is - the deep red suggests that the oven would be at hottest temperature there is, making the poster even more shocking. It shows that this is unacceptable, and as the the tagline says, "leaving an animal in a hot car is a crime".
The last word of the tagline is in capital letters, which makes it more effective because it is making sure that the audience knows that this behaviour is definitely punishable by law, and is not only morally wrong, but also is illegal because it is neglect and animal abuse. I think that by writing this, it makes it clear to the audience that people that neglect and abuse animals in this way definitely need to be punished. The comparison of an oven and a car may seem like two completely different things, but when putting in this context, it's clear that leaving an animal in a hot car is basically like putting them into an oven, because they're too hot and will get absolutely roasted.
Child Abuse Awareness campaigns are usually handled by creating posters of abused children, such as the experiment in Spain, using lenticular printing. Viewers were able to 'see different images from different angles on the same display'. Anyone over 4 ft 6 inches saw a clean face of a child while anyone below this height, presumably more so aimed at children, could see the abused child, with a number to call.
This campaign is a strong social experiment, and is aimed at children so that they can see the damage done to this abused child, and are encouraged to call if they're in a similar situation. This is more so because if the parents of an abused child were to see it, it could mean that the child wouldn't get the opportunity to call and get help, to be saved from their predicament. It also reflects on the belief of a lot of people that if they can't see the issue, they don't have to worry about it. This is shown by how the adults wouldn't be seeing the problem when looking at the advertisement, but the children would because they're looking at it from another perspective - a lot of adults could be unaware of child abuse happening around them because they don't see it, or some are purely ignorant and don't wish to believe it's happening instead of acknowledging it and trying to help. This technique of advertisement is more so encouraging children to call if they're suffering, instead of trying to make anyone feel guilty or scared. It also raises the belief that if these children are helped, they may turn out to be okay like the child show from the adult's point of view, showing that maybe that making the changes will be beneficial.
I think that this way of advertisement is strong because of appealing to children - it's encouraging them to talk to someone
if they need to, and to understand that there is someone that will listen to them and try to help them. The advert in one way is trying to show children that it's okay to be scared, but getting help is the right thing to. However, it also shows how ignorant other people can be - it explains that a lot of people wouldn't look twice and could even ignore the problem, while a lot of other people simply do not even know that there is a problem because they can't see it. As a social experiment, it is very thought-provoking, because it makes me wonder how many children suffer in silence and how many adults don't know what's going on around them, or may also just ignore the problem completely. It would make anyone that is informed of the different perspective think about how they didn't notice, and apply this to the case with abused children, as most people wouldn't realise something's wrong until the child is seriously hurt.
This poster for preventing child abuse in America is shocking because it shows the image of a weapon, in this case a gun, and the image of a child that was killed with this weapon. It also gives information on who the child was, how old they were, who killed them and what killed them.
This poster is shocking because it's so blunt yet it has a strong message behind it. It's rare to see a campaign that is so truthful, and it tells the audience exactly what happened without needing to sugarcoat it or say too much about it. It shows the cold hard truth - a 4 year old child has been shot by her father. Using the image of a child crying and screaming inside the silhouette of a gun is simple, yet it provokes a lot of emotion. From looking at this, I felt angry and sympathetic to this poor child, killed so brutally and unfairly. This links to the animal abuse awareness because like animals, young children can't fight back - they have no way of winning against these people that decide to treat them so cruelly for no reason. It also made me wonder "how many children have to die before this issue is demolished?", which I realised is the main type of question I have to ask throughout my campaign - how much is it going to take before the issue at hand is destroyed?
Using a background that resembles a wall is compelling because it helps bring focus to the main focus of the poster, which is the gun and the child in the middle. The background isn't plain white and boring, but it isn't too eye-catching that it takes away the focus from the issue being promoted. It also looks like the silhouette is painted onto the wall, which is another good effect - the gun looks like it's been hand-drawn and coloured, but the addition of the child inside the silhouette of the gun gives it another level of complexity. However, the entire idea and the execution of the poster is very simple - there's nothing being over-exaggerated, there's not too many words or too many things to look at - the design and colour scheme seems straightforward. This helps make sure the only thing to keep the audience's eye on is the problem, and therefore gives no room for any excuses to not want to help destroy child abuse.
Auto Safety campaigns urge drivers to be cautious and make sure they are driving safely on the roads, to avoid crashes. Crash Test Dummies 'promoted the use of seat belts from 1985 to 1999', which made the use increase from 14% to 79%. In addition to this, 'AT&T aimed to prevent driver's sending text messages with their "It Can Wait" campaign', due to statistics from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration showing that 'drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident while driving'.
A lot of newer advertisements show the impact of bad driving and the different outcomes that accidents can have - some people are killed or left paralysed - and the consequences of the actions taken by the driver at fault. A lot of drivers are ignorant on the road and try to see how far their luck will run by chancing doing things such as texting, making calls, smoking, playing games on their phones, etc. It's always stated that even taking your eyes off the road for one second can cause a lifetime of problems, so most campaigns try to fear the audience by showing what could happen if they look away from the road or drive irresponsibly, especially those that drink and drive.
I believe that fearing the public and showing them the consequences helps put into perspective that their priorities should be with safety and continuing to live, rather than with trying to take risks and short cuts. They also should realise the effects of drinking while driving could be extremely dangerous, and that they should feel guilty for all of the times they've put themselves in danger or risked the lives of other people. Showing people the impact that their one-second decision could make hopefully makes the audience re-evaluate their decision, especially with their own lives at risk. I think that by showing how you can implicate yourself within an accident, it would make the viewer want to change to avoid all of the guilt and pain that could await them if they continue to act the way they do with their driving habits. It's similar to the smoking campaigns, which show how badly you can mess up your own life and
someone else's. However, the driving commercials are a lot harsher and sometimes even show the reality of someone having died at the scene of an accident because of someone else's reckless decisions.
I extracted a lot of information from this source, including the effect of campaigns as seen in Anti-Smoking, where most people are influenced into quitting smoking due to seeing these advertisements in comparison to those that haven't been exposed to these advertisements and don't wish to quit because of their lack of awareness, plus the poster campaigns used for Animal Cruelty Prevention and Child Abuse Awareness, where guilt is exploited in order for the audience to understand exactly what's wrong with the world, and finally with Auto Safety and the awareness it has when encouraging drivers to wear seat belts, and the videos that show exactly what could happen when an accident happens and someone could be killed or injured really badly.
I think that this poster is quite clever because the words are slightly blurred, as if the audience looking at it is intoxicated. The letters 'd', 'i' and 'e' in the word 'drive' are in red, and are clearer than the other letters, plus they are also larger. The poster shows the second message within the line 'don't drink and drive', which reads 'don't drink and die'. This is to get the audience to realize the biggest problem that alcohol can create is death. Highlighting the letters in red, which is the colour of blood, makes them stand out against the black coloured background and the white coloured words. This gets the audience thinking about how dangerous drink driving is, because of all of the pain that comes with it.
Having the words slightly blurred means the viewer looks at the poster as if they are drunk already, which is a good way to get the audience to see from the perspective of someone that would attempt to drink drive. It would make the audience wonder why someone would attempt to drink drive because of how irresponsible it is, but it also shows them that some people wouldn't realize the consequences of it until they see the word 'die'.
This poster was produced for the sole purpose of getting people not to drink and drive, so putting it into the perspective of a drunk person helps show the audience that they need to focus on the main issue - which is the result of death. Even if some things may be too difficult to understand when drunk, the intoxicated person needs to be exposed to the harsh reality enough to know that they should never make the decision to drink drive. They need to be around posters like this so much, that are straightforward and brutally honest, to have it in their head, even when drunk, that this is never a good idea, and even more so, is illegal.
This poster is really effective because it is subtle, yet extremely clear. The message is short and one of the most used sentences in social awareness campaigns, because the issue effects everyone, and could happen to anyone if they act too irresponsible.
The use of the rhetorical question also gets the audience thinking, because it relates to both the intoxicated person and anyone else that could be effected. 'Your next victim?' suggests that the driver or someone else could be killed, which creates a lot of guilt and sympathy for the audience.
Examples of Social Awareness Campaigns
This 'Don't Talk While He Drives' campaign looks at what could happen if you call someone and continue to talk to them knowing they're driving. Drivers being on their phone cause a lot of accidents because they're distracted, which could end in death. This campaign aims to get people to stop talking to someone if they know they're driving, so that the driver isn't distracted and there's less risk of an accident.
I think it's effective because of the gore of the advert - it's showing a real world problem and the result of it. In this case, the wife is at fault for distracting her husband while he's driving, and the impact means that he (presumably) dies. The blood coming through the phone is the symbolism of the woman having her husband's death on her conscience, and therefore she is splattered in his blood, as if she's killed him herself. I think that this channels fear and guilt into the mind's of an audience, as it shows that you can have
someone else's blood on your hands by being ignorant about a situation. Knowing someone is driving while you're on the phone to them is basically like killing them yourself if you distract them. However, I can also argue against this campaign, because the driver shouldn't be answering their phone whilst driving anyway, so both parties would be at fault and would be responsible for the accident. This campaign focuses more so on the person on the other end of the phone, suggesting that it's entirely their fault if they continue to talk to someone knowing they're driving.
This campaign looks at the way workers are treated, and compares them to tools to make a point. Workers are not the tools that some of them use, so why are they being treated like them? There's been a lot of disagreement with the way workers have been treated, including their hours and the amount of money they earn for doing their jobs. In a lot of cases, these workers may end up doing a lot more hours and earning a lot less money, but they have to accept it because they can't get another job. Some of the conditions they work in are also horrible, and their work is taken for granted. The workers are being used and aren't respected - when they're not wanted anymore they're thrown away without a care to how they'll manage without a job.
I think this campaign is effective, but doesn't get the message across strong enough. The idea is well crafted but the execution could
make more of an impact, to get the audience to sympathise with these workers and even feel guilt for the way someone else is treating them and their efforts. While it is a good campaign, I think that it needs to exploited properly and shown on a larger scale - get as much sympathy and guilt from the advert and showcase it to the audience to make them feel the same way - I think it needs to be made effective enough so that someone feels so strongly about it, that they want to contribute and help make a difference, which in this case seemed to be supporting 11.11.11 in their efforts for decent labour.
This campaign looks at the effects of air pollution through symbolism - the factory chimney is being made to look like the top of a gun, with the poster underneath showing the end of a gun, cut off in the middle. The chimney becomes the barrel and the smoke looks as though the gun has just been fired. This fits with the tagline 'Air pollution kills 60,000 people a year' because the chimney 'gun' has just killed a lot of people after being fired and having smoke rise from it. This is effective because it makes the audience look at factories in a new light, understanding that their chimneys give out so much air pollution that it might as well be a gun that kills people. The symbolism is very clever, because it works well together - the idea of the chimney acting as the the beginning of a gun puts the idea of pollution into a new perspective, as the audience now understands how dangerous the air pollution is thanks to the comparison of the gun to the chimney.
I think that this advertisement is effective because it is simple yet holds a complex symbolism to it, which is intriguing to the public eye. It's subtle approach also appeals to the audience because it makes them aware that the air pollution is being caused by factories, and that 60,000 people a year die from it, which is enough to want to make a change, to stop anymore people being 'shot'.
This advertisement shows the idea of karma, which is the belief of being rewarded or punished based on your actions - doing something good means something good will happen to you, but doing something bad means something bad will happen to you. This campaign plays with that idea, and helps make even those who don't believe in karma to start questioning it. The campaign is of a soldier in the Iraq War, firing a gun. The poster is large in width because it is supposed to be wrapped around something, such as the brick column shown underneath the poster, in order for it to make sense. The poster wraps around the column to show that the end of the gun is pointed at the soldier's back, showing that by this soldier shooting, eventually it will come and shoot him in the back, quite literally. The tagline 'what goes around comes around' means that by this soldier doing something bad, his karma will come back to haunt him. The main point of this advert is to convince people to help stop the Iraq War, and it's poster campaign is clever and original in comparison to some of the other campaigns out there. While it doesn't exploit it as much as it could, it's effective in the way that it looks at how your actions can come back to haunt you in the future. It also gives the message that the war will carry on in this way unless it is stopped.
I think the campaign is decent - it's clever and unusual with the way it addresses the audience, but I don't think it's as strong as it could be. It doesn't really use any persuasive techniques to make the audience want to help, so it's not as effective as it could be. It doesn't really make the audience think much either, and doesn't make them fearful of the war, just aware of it.
Historical Comparison
In my mind, a social awareness campaign is similar to the types of propaganda that used to be used during times such as both World Wars, and the Women's Right to Vote, because of the persuasive techniques they use - anger, guilt and fear. Propaganda was usually to make the audience believe something, as most of the time it was to scaremonger subjects and make them supportive of their government, although sometimes this backfired.
This happened a lot with America, because they wanted to alter the public's opinions of others - during World War One, they produced a lot of propaganda under the ruling of Woodrow Wilson because they wanted to depict German and Austro-Hungarian armies as the worst people to exist, and therefore took over control of the media in order to print only what the
government wanted the public to think. Britain also were happy to censor their newspapers, and exaggerated headlines (regardless of whether they were true or not). They also created several posters encouraging patriotism, trying to convince civilians to join the war effort because they would be rewarded in several ways - they would be able to see different countries and get out of their normal lives, which were far from exciting, and they also thought they'd be greatly respected for their selflessness.
This also happened again during World War Two, when America was reluctant to create propaganda, and instead just wanted to give information. They focused mainly on creating posters for patriotism instead of trying to turn the public against the enemy, like the British and other allied countries. None of these posters had been created by the government, and instead were produced by artists. However, they did greatly support the War, and made no secret of it.
Another example of propaganda was the Women's Right to Vote, which saw a lot of harsh posters emerge against the Suffragettes, who took violent action for not being heard - they were shown as crazy and disrespectful women who couldn't function properly in normal society and therefore didn't deserve the right to vote and make decisions. Some preferred the Suffragists, who protested peacefully, and the posters produced showed them in a better light, even though the government was still against the idea of giving the women the vote. Eventually, the help during World War One was one of the main factors that enabled them to get the vote in 1920.
All of the propaganda produced throughout these events were made specifically to influence people, and was essentially a technique of brainwashing in order to get the people on the side of the government. While I know that social awareness campaigns are different in the sense that they're set up by companies wanting to make a good difference to the world, I couldn't help but notice how some of the campaigns use similar persuasion techniques by using fear, anger and guilt. While the two subjects are used for different purposes - propaganda has always been to change people's minds for their own benefit to support the government's way of thinking, and social awareness campaigns are to try to get people to realise the different kinds of harms they are doing and how changing these things will make the world a better place - I thought it was interesting to make the link because they also have the same goal, which is to create emotion.
All of this information is relevant because I think it helps with putting some of my ideas into perspective - it helps to decipher exactly what the difference is between a social awareness campaign and propaganda. While I know propaganda isn't being used as often anymore, I find that linking it is interesting because it helps to remind me of the main goal that I want from my social awareness campaign, which is to create an emotion for my audience to feel, enough to make them want to make a positive change and better the world. I know that propaganda was mainly for selfish reasons, but I know that social awareness campaigns are for positive changes, and I wanted to examine that difference in order to see how the same persuasive techniques can be used for different purposes. I want to make sure my campaign evokes a positive change, so seeing how propaganda is used makes me more determined to make a difference with what I want to promote, and to see exactly what is wrong with how people used to want to make changes in comparison to how it's done today.
Social Awareness Campaign Ideas
