Kids Company - Persuasive.

Kids Company –

The main focus of this advert is to persuade people to donate money to the charity, “Kids Company”. They use emotive language to try and get the listeners to feel for the children living in harsh conditions.
The advert opens up with a young boy talking about Christmas Day, and how he wants his mum to go out and work as a prostitute. Straight away this grabs people’s attentions as it’s not the type of thing you would usually hear a child saying.
The boy then explains that he will be all alone in their ‘cold’, ‘dirty’ flat going hungry because there is no food to eat. This again is emotive as you don’t like to think of anyone in these situations, never mind a vulnerable child.
The advert then goes on to say that the boy will be sitting amongst drug dealers which is obviously not the correct surrounding’s for him, and waiting for his mum to come home.

After this a woman’s voice then comes on to explain the situation of how over 1,000 children in London will spend Christmas Day alone. The persuasive part then comes in by her saying how “YOU” can help Kids Company change that. They ask you to PLEASE support a child by donating five pound by donating at their website which is said to be kidsco.org.uk.

The use of emotive language in this advert is the main reason why it is so persuasive. The use of the word ‘you’ makes listeners feel like they are being directly targeted and that they’re involved with the young boy and his situation. They also use the word ‘please’ which is almost as though they’re begging you to help them.

The fact that this advert is based around a young child being alone on Christmas Day will also tug on peoples heart strings as we all know that the Christmas period is usually one spent with family members and should be a happy memorable time. Not a hungry, cold and dirty one as described.

The advert ends with the website name to make sure that people have the right information and are able to look them up and donate money to their organisation. Without this some people may be unaware of how to donate therefore the advert would be pointless.

Depending on the time of day that this advert is played, it could be upsetting for younger children to listen too, as it could be hard for them to understand that some people live in situations like this. It could then also be annoying for parents to have to explain away the meanings of words such as “Prostitute” and “Drugs” to children who’re not yet old enough to fully understand them.

Overall I find that this is an effective advert because it really does grab the listener’s attention and get them involved from right at the start by using a lot of negative situations, but by letting the listener know that if they hep, it could change into a positive.