Charity Ads: A More Mature Approach?

Kids Company by AMV.BBDO. Art direction/ design: Paul Cohen. Copy writer: Mark Fairbanks. Photography: Thom Atkinson

The unscrupulous among the advertising community have often tended to look upon charity accounts less as an opportunity to help those in need and more as a chance to help themselves. Is a more mature approach emerging?

Charity campaigns have often been taken on with the express intention of winning awards and, in order to do so, many have resorted to crude tactics. In the mid-90s when outrage over ‘shock advertising’ was at its peak, some of the worst offenders were for small charities many of which, miracu lously, were never heard from before or since.

But perhaps there is something of a more mature approach emerging. The first thing that occurs with these campaigns is the amount of copy used. It’s not so long ago that we were all bemoaning the death of long copy in advert ising. And yet all four campaigns use lengthy, discursive texts to make their case: in Kidsco, the copy runs to nearly 400 words. The style is convers ational.