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BHF produces a real tear jerker in DLKW Lowe debut – but is that really a cop out?

We’re all suffering from ‘charity fatigue’ or so it’s said, battered by ‘orrible images from a world that seems to get worse and worse – if you judge it by charity ads.

It isn’t of course; most people around the world are markedly better off than they were. It’s just that we hear infinitely more in more instant, graphic detail about the one who aren’t and so we get depressed about it. Partly courtesy of charities.

A while ago the British Heart Foundation surprised the ad business by moving from Grey to DLKW Lowe. Grey had produced a campaign featuring former football hard man and jobbing actor Vinnie Jones, ‘Stayin’ Alive,‘ showing us how to deal with heart attack victims: a useful charity ad!

Now, more than a year later, there’s a new campaign from Lowe and it’s tugging at those heartstrings once more.

Maybe this sort of ad pulls in more money. It’s the old market share argument. Charities in the UK are suffering because there are too many of them, they annoy people with their aggressive fund raising techniques and they spend too much on ‘executive’ salaries, administration and the like.

So you need to jerk more tears than your rivals to get the dosh from a finite pool. Which is hardly very charitable.

That said, this could hardly be bettered in the tear jerking stakes.

MAA creative scale: 7.

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