Save the children’s shock advertising

: how does it affect the audience’s feelings and perceptions?

Abstract

Because non-profit agencies mostly rely on financial support from donors, they implemented creative ways to gain audience’s attention and thus donations. Shock advertising, as in the use of graphic and explicit images is a technique that has been used for a long time in the non-profit field. However, over time, the use of images such as starving and dying children, has started to draw criticism and has become a relevant theme in the public debate around representation. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse in depth the current advertising of Save the Children, an international leading non-profit organisation, and measure the impact of such advertising in terms of audience’s perceptions, attitudes and feelings. In order to conduct this study, a theoretical framing on post-colonial studies has been illustrated and a mixed methods approach has been implemented, specifically both a Critical Discourse Analysis and a survey has been employed. The findings are consistent in saying that recent advertising from Save the Children is able to promote a narrative based on the “Us versus Them” approach and that such approach when it comes to advertising is not favourable in terms of audience’s perceptions, specifically for what concerns general attitudes, feelings and perceptions but also for what concerns the willingness to donate and to engage with the organisation.

Date of Award	10 Mar 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Catarina Valdigem (Supervisor)