TOW #5- Liking Isn't Helping

Liking Isn't Helping. Be A Volunteer. Save A Life.

Crisis Relief Singapore is an organization run by Christian disaster relief volunteers. With the help of an ad campaign known as Publicis Singapore, Crisis Relief generates several ads similar to this one presenting destructive floods, wars and earthquakes along with a group of thumbs up signs symbolic for Facebook likes. This advertisement displays a young boy, the victim of an earthquake, missing a limb and surrounded by several hands showing thumbs up signs. Crisis Relief attempts to depict an extremely powerful message through this visual arguing that "liking isn't helping" and that if anyone really want to help those who are suffering, they should become volunteers to go to these countries and assist them. This organization is trying to demonstrate the ineffectiveness in liking a Facebook post, continuing to scroll through a feed and doing nothing more to help those in need. The purpose is compelling and made incredibly clear through the use of dark colors to instill a weary tone, presence of thumbs up signs surrounding the child to display inadequacy and the picturing of the child missing a limb appealing to pathos. The black and white colors throughout the advertisement shed an expression which mirrors that of the child. It makes the viewer feel sad, distraught and disconnected from reality emphasizing the surreal image displayed. The pain in the photo is stressed even further through the use of these colors and it helps the viewer understand the horrors behind what is happening to these children, making a mere Facebook like seem like a minuscule amount of effort put toward aiding this problem. There are several posts on Facebook each day that present pictures similar to this one, they often show suffering children in several parts of the world with captions such as "Click like if you feel bad" or "One like = one punch in the face for whoever is responsible for this". Though many of these posts receive numerous likes from viewers, there is rarely any action actually taken by anyone to help the children in the photos. With a suffering child represented in the center, the Crisis Relief organization surrounds him with several thumbs up signs to mimic the Facebook likes. Now the message becomes extremely clear as the viewer can see the child missing a limb laying there helpless receiving no help from the people watching and "liking" the situation in front of them. This is an accurate description of what people behind their screens liking these posts are actually doing for the suffering children in other countries. Finally there is the effectiveness in this advertisement created by the condition of the child shown. The viewer is immediately drained emotionally by the sight of a young boy, appearing to be no older than four years, missing a leg and wrapped in bloody bandages where it should be. This is ultimately the most powerful appeal to pathos in the advertisement. Not only does it make the viewer feel unsettled and upset, but it promotes a strong feeling inside to want to help the child. No matter what the situation or country, this image leaves a bad taste in the mind of the viewer with one pivital fact on the table, someone needs to do something to help this child. This definitely encourages people to want to become volunteers, by throwing the cold hard facts of life in the face of the viewer, it rapidly stirs emotions and evokes a feeling of moral responsibility.