water aid
What is it
The charity Water Aid was established in 1981
as a response to a United Nations campaign
for clean water, sanitation and water hygiene
education. It now works with organisations
in 37 African, Asian and Central American
countries plus the Pacific region. Since
1991 its patron has been Prince Charles.
• Created by Atomic London in October 2016,
this advert (titled Rain For Good) stars
16 year-old Zambian student Claudia and
aims to show how communities benefit
from clean water by depicting everyday
chores such as farming and laundry.
how does it subvert conventions?
• The Water Aid advert reinforces charity
advertisement conventions by including key
information about the concern, a personalised
narrative to which this information is relevant,
and a direct appeal to the audience for money.
• However, the fact it lacks a non-diegetic
voiceover, melancholic audio codes and black
and white visual codes could all be seen as
unconventional of this advertising sub-genre.
- doesn't introduce itself like other charity adverts
Media language
The opening medium shot with a pull
focus between the digital radio and the rain
against the window establishes the advert
in a modern, British setting (the audio
codes are of an announcer with an English
accent). It’s connoted that the scenes that
follow (in an unnamed but likely African
country) are happening at the same time.
• The visual and audio codes work together
to construct the narrative of “sunshine” (in
Africa) “on 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.
Semiotics – Roland Barthes
Suspense is created through the enigmatic
use of the slow-motion, medium close-up,
low-angle tracking shot of Claudia’s feet and
the swinging bucket (Barthes’ Hermeneutic
Code) and emphasised by the crescendo of
the song in the scene at the water pump over
which the informative on-screen graphic
appears (Barthes’ Proairetic Code).
• Barthes’ Semantic Code could be applied to the
lines from the song used from 00.34 diegetically
and then as a sound bridge over the medium
shot of a group of women carrying water
buckets on their heads: “make me feel, make
me feel like I belong… don’t leave me, won’t
leave me here”. The connotation here being
that the text’s audience can help Claudia “feel
like she belongs” and “won’t leave” her there /
in that situation if they donate to Water Aid.
• The Symbolic Codes (Barthes) of droughtridden African countries are reinforced
both visually and through the advert’s
audio codes up until about 00.47.
Structuralism – Claude Lévi-Strauss
• How texts are constructed through the
use of binary oppositions – at 00.47, the
song’s title line “sunshine on a rainy day”
is used over shots of children running,
playing, laughing and the more positive
connotations of this section of the advert are
emphasised by the high key lighting used.
• A further visual binary opposition is created
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.
• The on-screen graphic (“650 million people
still don’t have access to clean drinking water”)
creates a conceptual binary opposition
between Claudia’s positive story and that of
other, less fortunate people. It’s this opposition
that the audience is encouraged to be part
of the solution to by giving “£3 today”
Social context
Launching the Rain For Good campaign, Water Aid
said that it had “deliberately broken away from the
traditional charity ad formula” in response to the
public’s desensitisation to traditional fundraising
tactics. The stereotypical ‘victim’ needing our
help is an archetype with which the audience
would be familiar from many other charity adverts.
This would perhaps make the more positive
representation of Claudia as a healthy, independent
and musically talented woman stand out to an audience who might otherwise have become immune
to the emotive representations conventionally
deployed by this advertising sub-genre.
representations
• The dress codes of the advert’s main
female character include a stereotypical
knee-length skirt and pink colour
palette in both her top and shoes.
• Her age is similar to the other young women she
walks past at 00.30 and those who join her at the
water pump at 01.00. This connotes that she has
perhaps had to “grow up too quickly” because
of the tough environment in which she lives.
Her independence is connoted by the wideangled 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 (00.16),
her open, confident gesture codes (00.51) and her
smiling gesture code (01.09) represent her as
the advert’s protagonist and a ‘character’ with
whom the audience can positively associate.
Stuart Hall’s theory of representation
the
images of a dry, dusty African environment
in which people may be struggling to survive
form part of the “shared conceptual road
map” that give meaning to the “world” of
the advert. The more positive audio codes
then work to challenge these stereotypical
representations, creating enigmas around why
Claudia appears to be so positive. The solution
to these enigmas is given to the audience at
01.00 when we first see the water pump.
David Gauntlett’s theory of identity
– 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.
Liesbet Van Zoonen’s feminist theory
by
assuming the stereotypically male roles of
‘protagonist’ and ‘provider’, Claudia is perhaps
contributing to social change by representing
women in non-traditional roles. The work
involved in collecting the water is physically
challenging (non-traditional for female roles)
though the advert does reinforce stereotypes of
women being associated with care of children
Gilroy’s ethnicity and post-colonial theories
that media texts reinforce colonial power could
be applied, as Water Aid is encouraging its
British audience to ‘help’ those like Claudia
who live in ‘less developed’ countries.
Social/cultural context
In December 2016, this advert had been viewed
about 47 000 times on Water Aid’s YouTube
channel and this page also actively encourages
the sharing of the advert through social networks.
Further evidence that the likely target audience
are literate with technology is that donations
are encouraged through the imperative “Text
SUNNY to 70555” and the use on the YouTube
page of a twitter hashtag (#ShareSunshine).
The advert’s cover of Zoe’s 1990 song Sunshine On
A Rainy Day could indicate that the target audience
are in their 30s–40s as they’re likely to remember
the original and get pleasure from the nostalgic
value of hearing a song with which they’re familiar.
how industries target audiences
• The likely audience demographic is constructed
through the advert’s use of a young woman
with whom they might personally identify
(Uses and 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.
• Water Aid acts as an Opinion Leader
for the target audience who would
assume the “650 million people…”
statistic (01.14) is true and reliable.
• The unconventionally positive visual
codes, audio codes and representations
would, the producers hope, give the advert
unique selling points compared to other
charity appeals and therefore make the
audience more likely to donate.
Reception theory – Stuart Hall
• The use of handheld camera shots and
indirect mode of address made by Claudia
connote that the audience is following her
story, but Water Aid rather than she herself
have constructed this narrative for us.
This, according to Hall, is the dominant or
hegemonic encoding created by Water Aid.
• 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.
Cultivation theory – George Gerbner
• This theory might suggest that audiences
have become used to the conventions of
this sub-genre of advertising and perhaps
somewhat ‘immune’ to pleading, earnest nondiegetic voiceovers by well-known voices
and black and white, slow-motion, emotive
representations of people suffering.
• The target audience’s likely liberal political
perspectives will have been shaped by exposure
to previous, generically similar adverts,
shaping their world view that the suffering
of people less fortunate than themselves can
be alleviated by charitable donations.