One of the things I feel strongly is the importance of the web in giving people a voice who otherwise wouldn’t be heard. It’s important if the world is ever going to move on from the belief that what keeps people alive in developing countries is our pity and our cash.
The Universal Declaration on Human Rights is clear, it gives everyone the right to be heard, which brings me to UNICEF’s important new campaign, PUT IT RIGHT:
The rights of children around the world are denied every day. UNICEF is working in over 190 countries to protect the rights of all children and ensure that their voices are heard.
So far so good. UNICEF do a lot of good work, some of which I witnessed first hand when I lived in Ethiopia. But then I clicked on the TV advert to be told by Ewan Mcgregor that
‘UNICEF is working to make sure children’s voices are heard’.
What’s missing?
The advert doesn’t contain a single child’s voice. Not one.
UNICEF have undermined their own message, falling into the classic trap of showing children but not giving them the space to speak for themselves. Instead of using a child’s voice, they’ve opted for a celebrity, all be it one that does genuinely care about these issues. When it comes to asking for your support, children are seen but not heard.
To go with the advert UNICEF have had Agency AMVBBDO build them a really jazzy website (although with a poor back end). It features the stories of six children:
Great. I randomly clicked on Charles story, expecting to see and hear from him. Infact all we get is pictures, text and some really annoying ambient audio, but we never actually get to hear from Charles. In contradiction of UNICEF’s own campaign he isn’t given a meaningful voice.
Infact 571 words are used to tell Charles’ story, but only 37 of those words are direct quotes, the rest is copy.
According to UNICEF Put It Right is a five year campaign. Let’s hope they bring in some people who actually know how to help the children to tell their own stories. That’s all it would take to change an important campaign into a powerful one.
On that note they could learn a trick or two from MSF’s Condition Critical campaign, or Save The Children’s Kroo Bay campaign.
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Totally agree with you and well spotted. How would you go about telling them?
Just take the time to listen to them Stephen … and then edit the content appropriately … thats the amazing thing … its not rocket science.
I suppose when you say it like that….I guess I’m just shocked at the global brand of UNICEF didn’t do that.
Since it’s a five year campaign I think UNICEF still have a chance to correct their error otherwise it’s very ironical considering the title of the campaign -’Put it right’. The campaign’s intentions are great, because it really is time that children’s voices were heard literally. UNICEF should know that with the internet their campaign will live beyond the five years, beyond the celebrity status of whoever they pick to voice it, beyond the childhood of the children whose stories they depict in the campaign. But the voice of a child touches all in ways that can never be explained… it can’t be ignored. For even after these children have grown up, their voices will represent all children who need this attention for as it is the world always has to be reminded.
[...] actual voice from the community that’s being represented.” This is happening right now with UNICEF’s new Put It Right campaign. Photo/audio slideshows that duckrabbit produces use voices in an incredibly powerful way, as in [...]
[...] actual voice from the community that’s being represented.” This is happening right now with UNICEF’s new Put It Right campaign. Photo/audio slideshows that duckrabbit produces use voices in an incredibly powerful way, as in [...]
[...] rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. It reminds me of UNICEF’s recently launched Put It Right campaign, which advocates for the rights of children to be heard but scores a spectacular own goal [...]
One thing that isn’t considered here is money. It costs volumes to create a website that supports video. They’d have to edit the video using a film production company, design the website to play video – more costs – and pay for the video to be stored on a server to be accessed by thousands or millions of people at a price of thousands of pounds a month.
You should judge UNICEF not on the limited budget they had to create this small website, but rather that they decided to spend their money on the work they do around the globe on the streets, in schools and right the way up to national governments.
Really Andy, I’m sorry but that’s just not true. As a percentage cost of the project it would have been tiny. Unicef have spent a small fortune on adverts on TV, and massive poster adverts, I presume they also spent a fair amount of money on google ads. Cost is not an issue here.
@Andy i guess that is just a small excuse as you could easily (what most NGOs also do) host the videos on Vimeo or Youtube what means no costs for them. And this videos could easily be embedded into the website what should technically be one of the easiest step. What leaves the the costs for the editing for video. The question is if video is actually needed for that? I think no. A couple of pictures plus the voices of the kids could easily have the same effect. They use sound files right now, but just atmo sounds, no voices. So i guess the costs for the project is only a very small excuse, especially when they put some budget in it to create this website. It could just easily be done more personal and more direct, even without extra costs.
Ok so carrying into this debate. How much does it cost to actually get video/pictures up on a website? Obviously it depends on the amount of budget the ’said’ NGO has…yet like Simon and Duck have said it can be cheap if you want it to be. I agree. On a ‘geek’ level, you can do anything for free – so its no excuse if you are not projecting the right voice – regardless of money.
OK here’s the scenario. So, you’re the UK division of a huge globe spanning organisation with a focus on helping children escape poverty, reach education and have a voice to declare self determination of your beliefs, your needs and your future. There are hundreds of people working for you, teams organising individual fundraising projects, campaigns, regional network groups, political lobbying and education. You decide to launch a broad campaign spanning TV, Print and the Internet. It’s your first. For the past however-many years your primary media output has been secondary, through other media distributors such as newspapers and magazines or through your limited alternatives. Your various division heads all have different opinions of what tone, style, mood and quality your campaign should have. In this instance you’re hindered by your organisations size and available budget. A big budget means big choices, lots of voices and few decisions. TV and Print are the heavy hitters. That’s the safe bet that your department heads of various ages are all familiar with, so that’s where your money goes. Web is an afterthought.
If it was me I would have created a smaller charity as a subsidiary of UNICEF made of no more than 10 people with the charge of creating the campaign. It could take advantage of grass roots, community stuff, guerilla marketing – sneaking into shot behind TV news reporters with banners and signs. It could take advantage of forums, flickr, youtube, vimeo, myspace, facebook, twitter, sharing media under a creative commons license so people will use it and spread the message. It would then free to make their own decisions based on their speciality and as a separate organisation, it’s OK if they have a different voice – as long as they are effective.
But that’s a big risk and an organisational and red-tape nightmare. So you do what you can. Also the Haiti and Chile earthquakes happened during development of this campaign which obviously takes priority away from it.
Andy, I think you hit the nail on the head, its just all very, well, old school.
When you say ‘if it was me’, you sound like someone who believes in something. Unicef have a great brand, one of the best. They use it brilliantly on TV, but when people go looking for them after seeing them on TV where do they go? To the internet and that’s where they need to deliver communications that make me believe that they can make a difference, not feel that their just after my cash by concocting some half baked campaign.
I mean, I still don’t know, what is ‘Put it right?’ A campaign or a fundraiser? Looks to me like a fundraiser half dressed up in a campaigns clothes.
Good point Andy. I’m sure Benjamin could testify on this better as he was part of a side project from MSF called ‘Condition Critical’ that is gaining more and more support.