Advert, Audio-Visual: Water Aid 2016

Question 1

Product Context

Answer 1

Creative agency Atomic London, Oct 2016

‘Rain For Good’, starring Zambian student Claudia (16)

Shows everyday community benefits of clean water (farming)

Question 2

Historical Context (charity)

Answer 2

Established in 1981 - response to UN campaign for clean water, sanitation, water hygiene education
Works with NGOs in 37 African, Asian, C American countries & Pacific
Patron is Prince Charles

Question 3

Cultural Context

Answer 3

Band Aid (1984), Live Aid, Comic Relief (1985), establish codes and conventions for charity advert
Cover of Zoe’s ‘Sunshine on a Rainy Day’ (1990), also familiar to target audience aged 30-40 - nostalgic pleasure
Audience comfortable with tech / social networks (“text SUNNY to 70555”)

Question 3

Comparative Study Text

Answer 3

‘No Choice’
Conventionally constructed, explicit emotive representation of protagonists suffering: archetype of stereotypical ‘victim’ needing help, familiar to audience from many other charity adverts

Question 5

What are the codes and conventions of Water Aid?

Answer 5

• Opening mid-shot with a pull focus between the digital radio and the rain against the window establishes the advert in a modern, British setting, connoting that the scenes that follow are happening at the same time
• The visual and audio codes work together to construct the narrative of “sunshine” (in Africa) “on a a rainy day” (in Britain) with the associated problems of drought and lack of access to clean drinking water that the charity is aiming to relieve

Question 6

How does Water Aid subvert the genre conventions of audio-visual adverts?

Answer 6

• It reinforces charity advertisement conventions by including key info about the concern, a personalised narrative to which this info is relevant, and a direct appeal to the audience for money
• However, it lacks a non-diegetic voice over, melancholic audio codes and black and white visual codes, which makes it unconventional

Question 7

How can Barthes Semiotic theory be applied to Water Aid?

Answer 7

• Hermeneutic code - suspense is created through the enigmatic use of the slow-motion, mid-close-up, low-angle tracking shot of Claudia’s feet and the swinging bucket
• Semantic code - applied from 00.34 diegetically and then as a sound bridge over the mid-shot of a group of women carrying buckets on their heads, connoting that the text’s audience can help Claudia
• Symbolic code - drought-ridden African countries are reinforced both visually and through the advert’s audio codes up to 00.47.

Question 8

How can Levi-Strauss’ structuralism theory be applied to Water Aid?

Answer 8

• Binary Oppositions - the songs title line, “sunshine on a rainy day’ is used over shots of children running, playing, laughing, along with the more positive connotations are emphasised with high key lighting
• Visual binary opposition - between the arid, washed-out, primarily beige and brown colour palette of the advert’s first third and the more vibrant colours used at 01.02
• On-screen graphic creates a conceptual binary opposition between Claudia’s positive story and that other, less fortunate people - this encourages the audience to be part of the solution

Question 9

What is the social context of Water Aid?

Answer 9

• Intertext - Water Aid’s ‘No Choice’ TV advert from 2013 which is more conventionally constructed and represents the suffering of its main character in a more explicit and emotive way
• Launching the Rain for Good campaign, Water Aid said that it had “deliberately broken away from the traditional charity and formula” in the response to the public’s desensitisation to traditional fundraising tactics

Question 10

What are the representations in Water Aid?

Answer 10

• Dress code - stereotypical knee-length skirt and pink colour palette in both her top and shoes
• Her age is similar to other young women she passes during the video, connoting that she perhaps had to grow up too quickly due to the tough environment she lives in
• Her independence is connoted by the wide-angled shot at 00.18, in which she is denoted on her own on a long and empty dust road
• Close up shots using handheld cameras, her open, confident gesture codes represent her as the advert’s protagonist and a ‘character’ with whom the audience can positively associate

Question 11

How can Hall’s representation theory be applied to Water Aid?

Answer 11

Stereotypical representations of dry, dusty African environment are challenged through the more positive audio codes, creating enigmas around why Claudia appears to be so positive

Question 12

How can Gauntlett’s identity theory be applied to Water Aid?

Answer 12

Claudia acts as a role model for the type of lifestyle changes that the audience could be responsible for creating if they donate to Water Aid

Question 13

How can Van Zoonen’s feminist theory be applied to Water Aid?

Answer 13

• By assuming the stereotypically male roles of ‘protagonist’ and ‘provider’, Claudia is perhaps contributing to social change by representing women in non-traditional roles
• However, the advert reinforces stereotypes of women being associated with care of children

Question 14

How does Gilroy’s ethnicity and post colonial theories apply to Water Aid?

Answer 14

His theory that media texts reinforce colonial power could be applied, as Water Aid is encouraging it’s British audience to ‘help’ those like Claudia who live in less developed countries

Question 15

What are the social and cultural contexts of Water Aid?

Answer 15

• Has 47000 views on Water aid’s YouTube channel in December 2016
• Further evidence that the likely target audience are literate with technology is that denotations are encouraged through the imperative, ‘Text SUNNY to 70555”
  Target audience - 30s/40s due to adverts cover of Zoe’s 1990 song Sunshine on a Rainy Day as they’re likely to remember the original

Question 16

How is the audience targeted, and how do audiences interpret Water Aid?

Answer 16

• Likely audience demographic is constructed through the advert’s use of a young woman with whom they might personally identify with (Uses & Gratifications theory)
• Parents might make similar readings, identifying empathetically with the ‘better life’ that Water Aid’s clean water provides for the children represented in the advert
• The unconventionally positive visual codes, audio codes and representative codes, give the advert unique selling points compared to other charity appeals and make the audience more likely to donate

Question 17

How can Hall’s reception theory be applied to Water Aid?

Answer 17

• Use of handheld camera shots and indirect mode of address made by Claudia connotes that the audience is following her story, but Water Aid rather than she herself have constructed this narrative for us
• The fact that she’s named creates the preferred reading that she is a real person and that the audience should invest in her narrative, sharing Water Aid’s ideologies

Question 18

How does Gerbner’s cultivation theory apply to Water Aid?

Answer 18

Suggests that audience’s have become used to the conventions of this sub-genre of advertising and perhaps somewhat ‘immune’ to pleading and emotive representations of people suffering