News

Leading direct marketing specialist Watson Phillips Norman (WPN) has created a new DRTV campaign for client ActionAid. The ad 'Lila' makes an appeal for child sponsors, who will ideally make a regular donation of £15 per month to the charity. Guy Farley was commissioned to compose original music for 'Lila'. He is an extremely talented composer, known for his work on features films including recently released The Flock with Richard Gere. The advertisement will air until Christmas on E4, Five Life, Five US, Living TV, Living TV2, More 4, MTV, Paramount, TCM, True Movies, UKTV Documentary, UKTV Food, UKTV Gardens, UKTV History and VH1.

The challenge facing the charity was how to find a new way of personalising the big issues of poverty, hunger and lack of education and of making these problems relevant and the solution achievable.

Gail Cookson of WPN comments:
"Recently ActionAid has noticed a trend for parents to sponsor children on behalf of their own children. Schools are increasingly becoming involved in sponsorship, with whole classes learning through helping a child in another country. For WPN this all important insight provided a basis for a whole new creative approach. Rather than an impersonal adult voiceover narrating a child's struggles, the story is told by a young British girl.

In child's language, the complex issues of poverty seem very simple. 'Lila', the subject of the film, never has enough to eat and the water she drinks makes her sick. It is surprisingly difficult to listen to a child talking about these issues - and that makes the message so much more hard hitting - it's children who are living in these conditions every single day.

After hearing 'Lila's story from a child's perspective, a 'parental' voice over provides the solution; that although poverty is hard to explain to our children, there is something that you can do. Told against compelling visuals, 'Lila's story is designed to resonate with parents and encourage them to become sponsors."

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