When your org needs money and your ads kinda funny . . .

I was looking over the past few blog postings and I noticed that most have been my random musings about events that I’ve participated in or navel gazing about the crazy universe that is nonprofit marketing and I’ve strayed pretty far afield from one of my main goals of this blog, namely critiquing cause marketing. I think that’s mostly because there is such a dearth of work that is either good enough to praise or terrible enough to ridicule, most of it is just a beige blah, but the other day I stumbled across a gem. This ad is either so good that it’s brilliant or so terrible that it is . . .well, terrible and the best part is I really can’t tell which one it is.
See for yourself:



WTF!
Seriously, wtf? I have so many contradictory feelings about this spot. After seeing this spot I definitely remember that diarrhea is serious as shit (forgive the pun, I couldn’t help myself) and that it something needs to be done about it, but at the same time I almost feel used. Like the ad agency pulled such a sharp 180 that I have whiplash. It’s almost too much of a jolt, so much so that I’m still in a lighthearted mood when the rug is yanked up from under me. It’s like the ad agency knows all of my buttons and then presses them without any subtly or finesse whatsoever.

Tactically speaking there are definitely a few things I’d suggest. 1) Cut down on the diarrhea joke time upfront. OK, I get that we treat diarrhea like a joke, when in reality it is deadly serious but you eat up precious seconds that you could be using to get the call to action across. 2) Increase the call to action. Send me to a website where I can do something about diarrhea, let me know that this isn’t just a death sentence on this poor little kid. At the end of the spot there is this lame ass wateraid lockup (if you can even call it that), send me to a website, let me know what I can do. 3) In my opinion they shouldn't have had the African child rhyming about his dead sister. He could have easily just said his sister died of diarrhea and the spot would have worked just as well (without the uncomfortable urge to laugh)

Beyond these points, there is a lot that this ad does right. For one it puts a face on a serious problem, it is disruptive enough to really make me think about the issue, it has kids in it (studies show people are automatically more interested when things have kids in it), and it's for a good cause.

So what’s the verdict? I like this ad. It’s shocking, it’s engaging, it’s not perfect but It gets the point across. I’ve been reading the posts and the reviews and lots of people don’t like this ad. Well screw those people, they can stick their opinions up their. . . well you get where this is going.



PS. This has nothing to do with this blog, but do you ever read the comments under ads like this? Here’s the link to the youtube page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dNFmBCogeA

If you ever want to question your belief in the inherent goodness of humanity check out the comments. It’s amazing how anonymity gives people the courage to say the most fucked up things they can think of. I guess it’s great that there is a forum for people to share their true feelings but it’s kind of disheartening to think that those comments reflect some individuals true feelings.