CASE STUDY 1: Water Aid Advert

PAPER 1: Section A 
CASE STUDY 1: Water Aid Advert "Rain for Good" 

Conventions: 

 1. Victim Narrative - Doesn't really use a victimized character in the advert but shows the uplifting, upbeat and joyful outcome from the input from viewers 

2. Appeal to Audience - The advert uses many things to relate to their target audience; a song from 1991 

3. Campaign - Water Aid Advert to help Africa to get water

4. Tagline  -

5. Logo -

Representation + Audience: 1. UK and Africa contrast 

2. Binary Opposition 

Technical Codes: 

1.Language

Q1:How is the UK represented in the advert ?  The UK is represented with a brief second sequence have bleak weather that brings down the mood of the advert

Q2:Who are the target audience ? The target audience are older middle-class people 

   

b:How can you tell ? The advert uses many things to relate to this specific audience; 

• a song from 1991 that  relates to the advert and audience can sort of relate ("drip,drip,drip") 
• at the very start there is a glimpse of a scenery that looks like a bleak, rainy day with a sort of middle-class looking house/window
• also has an older version of a radio which would be usually used by an older person

Q3:How is the landscape of Africa represented in the advert ? The landscape in Africa is shown at the start  to be extremely dry and is most likely used to show the need for water Africa has but moving its way towards the end where there is water the landscape is shown to have a beautiful, natural greenery e.g. flourishing trees to show the effect that water does have for them and that it brings the best for them.

Q4:How are the people in Africa represented in the advert ? Focus on the main character as well as other people you see.

The people in Africa are all shown to be emotionless people as they had blank facial expressions but their happiness is also there which is shown by their vibrant, extravagant clothes and their colourful buckets. But these emotions are all kept in at the start by the main character as she walks towards the water. The main character's singing at the start may have been showing signs of hope . As the main character reaches the water, their community comes together showing only signs of joy and then their clothes really give off the colour and energy there community has showing that water brings out the best in them.

 
Q5:What is the central message of the advert and how does it achieve this ? Look at techniques to appeal to the audience and the technical codes used.

The central message of the advert is the change of emotion that water brings to their community. They zoom in on the main character's face and her side profiles from start to the around the middle of the video to show her emotionless face as she sings whilst walking towards the water. They add a filter to make the scenes without water more dull and lifeless.

As she gets closer to the water a lot more action and beauty occurs e.g. the kid playing with the kite(could show freedom and purity), everyone singing and smiling with each other and a scene where there are beautiful flourishing tress near her . When she reaches the water they show a shot of the golden sun behind the water tap to show purity, hope and life it is also edited to make the water have the sunlight shine through it to make water look like 'treasure' and more precious.They also zoom in on everyones smiling face to show its positive impact.

Q6:Does the advert follow or subvert the conventions of the charity advert genre ? Compare with other adverts you have seen which focus on negative emotions and representations and focus on a narrative of a victim that need saving. Water Aid's previous campaign is good for a comparison too.  

 

This advert does not follow the usual conventions of a charity advert. A usual charity advert shows the viewers the bleakest and most horrifying scenes of the problem they are trying to fix in order to make the viewers feel as guilty as possible leading them to donate to the cause. Adverts from organisations such as "Save the Children" and their advert "THIS is Hunger" for Somalia to show us all the suffering that is going on and show us (most likely) a very young child in pain/poverty and give us their name(to create a small bond) to maximise the guilt felt by viewers as they would feel more bad for a child than an adult.  They usually give us many different clips of suffering people to show how devastating the problem is followed with a professionals personal message on the case to make it more 'believable'. On the other hand, this water aid advert shows us all the great, beautiful outcomes from our donations and finishes off with a message "650 million people don't have this" in order to give us a perspective of the people that do gain benefits from our donations. They focus on only the people and the main characters journey in this advert to make a sort of bond with the viewer. Both are highly effective in persuading viewers to donate but the final message is crucial for an advert like "Rain for good" as then if not viewers would believe that everything is going well.