You won’t mistake ads for the local United Way airing on television this week for those of a bank or insurance company. They won’t include smiling faces, warm embraces or feel-good messages. They won’t be fun — or even pleasant — to watch. But you probably won’t reach for the remote.
The series of three half-minute spots using raw sounds and images associated with disturbing social issues are an attempt by the United Way of Southeastern New England to grab viewers and make them want to give.
“Our issue is not name recognition. Everyone knows the name United Way,” said Dennis Murphy, president of the local chapter of the national philanthropic organization. “The issue that we’re dealing with is when you try to go deeper than that and ask people if they know what we do it gets fuzzy. That’s where the knowledge drops off dramatically”
The campaign, which includes radio, is just one component of a five-year strategic plan that started last year, Murphy said. Through stepped up marketing and new programs “we want to increase community awareness year round instead of just showing up in the cafeteria once a year and asking people to give.”
“We knew we had to do something to get people to focus, to get their attention, to create awareness and interest on behalf of people in the community,” he said. “That way they’re predisposed to say ‘hey, there’s some issues out there’ when the time comes.”
The new commercials — airing in Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut through December and possibly this spring — were created by Stoner Bunting Advertising of Lancaster, Pa. The agency, with the United Way, settled on the issues of suicide, domestic violence and job training to bring focus to what Creative Director Kevin Teevens called a “big and vague image.”
“Those three were dramatic examples of the work they’re doing,” said Carlton Wood, account supervisor on the campaign. “What we felt we needed to do is go back to square one and show some concrete examples of what United Way does to help people.”
A spot called “busy signal” features a rotary phone spinning slowly in space against a dark background. The viewer hears dialing followed by a busy signal over and over again until it is silenced by a gun shot. The message: “Last year United Way helped answer over 27,000 calls from people considering suicide. There’s no telling how many we’ve missed.”
In “Fight Night” words like “pow”, “smack”, “punch” and “hit” flash in and out of focus. The images are accompanied by the booming voice of a commentator at what turns out to be an incident of domestic violence. The message: “Thousands of women got out of abusive relationships last year in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, most couldn’t stay out.”
The comparatively mild but equally surprising “Mug Shot” features the firing of a flash bulb and what sounds like the background noises of a police station. A voice barking instructions ends up issuing an employee ID card. The message: “It costs taxpayers $38,000 to keep a man in prison for one year. It costs the United Way $4,500 to help him find and keep a job.”
All three spots conclude with the tagline “Please give. United Way of Southeastern New England.”
The campaign, valued at “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” was executed pro-bono on behalf of the organization, so that “out-of-pocket money was a small fraction” of the real cost, Murphy said. He declined to say how much.
Even without the ads, the approach appears to be working. United Way of Southeastern New England had a record year in 1997, raising $19.1 million that was distributed to hundreds of community agencies. However, that’s a change from recent years in which the organization increased its charitable donations despite plummeting funding, Murphy said.
“The reality is thousands and thousands of people are touched by United Way each year,” Murphy said. “We want to be more effective getting that message out year round.”
