Avertisement – Campaigns & Education

Print media is the form of advertisement that I have the most affinity for; I like looking at pictures. I respect that an idea can be delivered solely with text, with a static image, or a combination of both, and yet speak as loud as a radio or video.

Because all of the advertisements that I have posted thus far are made to sell something, I now want to look at advertisement that takes the form of a campaign. Campaigns can be used to educate and raise awareness of an important issue, not just promote sales of a service or product. Here, we’ll look at a homeless awareness campaign created for DePaul trust.

Bench: “Prostitute Mother. Father Unknown.”

A charity who works with with young homeless and vulnerable people across the UK, DePaul Trust commissioned the agency Publics London to create print advertisements in 2006. “The Root that causes Homelessness” campaign challenges viewers to think carefully about the origins of homelessness. Rather than simply asking potential donors to give money, this campaign helps people to understand why donations should be given, by educating them.

Bag Lady: “Alcoholic Mother. Sexually Abusive Father.”

In these print advertisements, the viewers are given all of the information needed by the visual aid of the “family trees”, while the unfriendly typeface coupled with the honest text asks to be taken seriously.

Dog: “Violent Father. Violent Mother.”

As DePaul explained the needs of the commission, ”For this campaign to have an effect, we wanted viewers to feel the isolation, loneliness and despair of the homeless person in each shot. Location, the type of tree and the light were critical to capturing these emotions. The creative idea required us to shoot wide to capture the entire tree, which indeed makes the person small in the frame. But we found that seeing homeless people in the harshness of their surroundings was more powerful than seeing them up close.”

Bin: “Mother Died. Father Drank”

The photography was by Ernst Fischer. The original intent, was to photograph actual homeless people, but due to UK laws, the people in the photos became models at the last minute.

There are countless campaigns that intend to do good by educating audiences, and I think it is important to consider such advertisements before writing off the advertisement industry as something wholly related to business and profit.