Bold or Brash?
While researching competitive ads in the not-for-profit category, our team came across a campaign that literally stopped us in our tracks.
The stark, contrasting, powerful imagery did such a good job at conveying a message that very little copy was needed to communicate the story. Regardless of how we individually felt about what we saw and the campaign overall, we believe that the ads delivered the message that was very likely set out as an objective in the orginating creative brief.
To be clear....I haven't seen the brief....but everyone knows that you should be able to guess what the creative strategy was if the ad was designed and written effectively.
I'd bet the farm that it went something like this:
Project Requirements: Develop a national print campaign
Communication Objective: Increase awareness of how little it costs to contribute to life saving, sustainable solutions to aid the poor in developing countries
Business Objective: Raise $XX funds to support programming for basic human needs: food, water & shelter
And if this was the brief - then this ad DELIVERED. In this business we talk about taking risks, being bold and getting your message out there by being innovative and smart and interesting. But it is quite often easier said than done.
These ads did all of those things. And to add to their credit, they have some enviable industry accolades as well. I can't vouch for whether or not they actually raised awareness funding - but I strongly suspect they succeeded on both accounts.
So I'm curious....are these ads bold? Or are they just brash? If they work to solve the stated objectives, but make you feel uncomfortable and just a little bit icky - is the creative strategy still working? I vote yes...but am interested to hear what you think.
