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There is truth in advertising and then there is emotion in advertising. Emotional advertising aims to tug at your heartstrings, while still driving a point home. There are several emotional advertisements that I can think of, but none of them have had the impact that the Keep America Beautiful organization has had.
Keep America Beautiful is this country’s largest community improvement organization and was created by businessmen and civic leaders in 1953, with the hopes of raising awareness about pollution, littering, and waste disposal. This organization, credited with coining the phrase “litterbug”, became the nation’s leading force behind community cleanup efforts. From the Great American Cleanup, to graffiti removal, their organized efforts have sought to keep our country on its collective toes with regard to environmental concerns.
The Keep America Beautiful “crying Indian” ad campaign became their most successful ever, and it ranks in the top 50 of the century’s top 100 ad campaigns. For their emotional ads, they used a Native American named “Iron Eyes” Cody and showed him in different areas surveying the effects of industry pollution, and discarded items along the highways and shorelines of America. The commercials featured Cody standing amidst garbage and debris after dragging his canoe to shore, as well as standing alongside a highway as garbage is tossed at his feet, the ending shows him crying a single tear and Cody became an icon of sorts due to the success of these ads.
Emotional advertising is still used today in areas of public awareness for such things as starving children, political venues and most recently the Gulf BP oil spill. It seems to me that the best way to address a serious situation is with the use of this form of advertising. Not only does it allow the organization to address the crisis at hand, but also provides a platform for future changes to a company’s mission statement by allowing them to show the general public how they will continue to develop more concise plans to handle any future situations that may occur.
Can you think of any other instance where an organization has used emotional advertising in order to prove a point or address a serious situation?
Photograph Credit:
Sabrina Segal
1. mamamarcy |Nov. 10, 2010 @ 7:17 AM
Always glad to respond to one of my former classmates. Your subject was on how companies use emotional advertising to prove a point, one commercial speaks comes to mind. It shows these animals who were abused, some are in cages but as these animals are shown, the song "In The Arms Of An Angel" by Sarah McLaughlin is being played. Music can set the mood. In this scenario, you hear the music playing, see the abused animals, and feel sadness or anger (especially if you are an animal lover).
Still, the point is made by The ASPCA: animals are abused each day, and with the support of others they are able to rescue them. They want us to be aware of the situation, and encourage us to give. Has anyone else ever seen this commercial? If so, what did you think of it?