So what do you think when you see the following.
I shot this in a bus shelter so it's not the best image but I think we can see enough here to draw some conclusions. Such as, for example, that she's an exceptionally beautiful young woman with large breasts. That's not surprising as she is a model. Oh that poor Vermeer never got to paint her! (And yes, sharp-eyed readers can spot my accidental self portrait dressed for minus 20 degree weather in the reflection off to the left.)
What is surprising is that she seems to have been chosen to represent poverty and I put it to you that no one—especially the people who put this campaign together—ever seriously entertained the thought that her face was the face of poverty for even a nano-second.
Are you prepared to be shocked? Apparently this woman who obviously can afford cool retro-80s clothing, obviously can afford make up and obviously can afford a gym membership cannot afford, wait for it, a loaf of bread!
This is yet another ad that isn't about what it says it's about. It is an ad asking you to make a donation but the reason for doing so is not to help someone else regain the dignity that living in poverty has taken away from them. No one knows better than the Salvation Army what modern urban poverty looks like and that ain't it.
Here's a hint as to what it does look like from the report the Salvation Army prepared when they launched the Dignity Project in Canada about a year ago:
Same general concept and yet different. I walk by the Salvation Army shelter every Friday morning, by the way, and vast majority of those I see are men. The few women most definitely do not wear make-up nor wear clothing anything like the young woman above.
But the man above isn't right either. He isn't smoking for starters. And he looks familiar doesn't he. Well, he'll look familiar to anyone old enough to have seen Peter Falk play Columbo. And while a Columbo lookalike probably doesn't pull in as much as the hot babe does, he does share something with her that I'll get to below.
What I'd like to suggest is that the ad works because it unintentionally succeeds on a different level from what it appears to be doing. To get that second sense, let's crop it just a smidge following the dividing line the creators have helpfully provided for us:
Now we can see that the picture is really aspirational. For even if we were to convince ourselves, against all odds, that she really was poor it would still be painfully clear that she doesn't need any help achieving dignity. She is a hip urban woman who embodies dignity and you, the unconscious suggestion goes, can also achieve dignity by donating to the Salvation Army. There is our potential donor at the bus stop in between her hot yoga session and the fair trade tea she is going to treat herself to when she gets home and her good friends at the Sally Ann feed her the perfect image of what she hopes she can be and associates that image with giving and something else.
The something else is religion. For cropping the picture like this also emphasizes the worshipful quality of it. The woman is reaching up. It's a content-free religion which isn't surprising in this day and age nor is it surprising from the Salvation Army which, while it definitely has a doctrine of belief, has long abandoned promoting that doctrine publicly. But it's perfect for someone who has found her yoga class meaningful but might wonder about the complete lack of any moral uplift associated with it. A problem that can me made to go away with a single donation ... "we accept all major credit cards; our operators are waiting".
The project manifesto gives it away:
Think about point #4 for a while: "Everyone has a right to a sense of dignity". That's one of those claims that means less the more you think about it. What is "a sense of dignity"? Why not say "Everyone has the right to dignity?" Well, to say that would kinda give it away wouldn't it? Charlie Sheen clearly as a sense of dignity but he doesn't actually have much dignity. The way it's put above hides the fact that dignity is a human achievement and there cannot, as a consequence, be a right to it. At most their might be a right to the pursuit of dignity (a point Jefferson fully grasped 236 years ago).
But a sense of dignity well that's something else. To believe in that doesn't require that we think even a second about what modern urban poverty—a phenomenon caused mostly by single-parent families, addiction and mental illness—is really like or about whether a loaf of bread would really make any difference. No, all this ad wants to make you think about is yourself and who you want to be.
I shot this in a bus shelter so it's not the best image but I think we can see enough here to draw some conclusions. Such as, for example, that she's an exceptionally beautiful young woman with large breasts. That's not surprising as she is a model. Oh that poor Vermeer never got to paint her! (And yes, sharp-eyed readers can spot my accidental self portrait dressed for minus 20 degree weather in the reflection off to the left.)
What is surprising is that she seems to have been chosen to represent poverty and I put it to you that no one—especially the people who put this campaign together—ever seriously entertained the thought that her face was the face of poverty for even a nano-second.
Are you prepared to be shocked? Apparently this woman who obviously can afford cool retro-80s clothing, obviously can afford make up and obviously can afford a gym membership cannot afford, wait for it, a loaf of bread!
This is yet another ad that isn't about what it says it's about. It is an ad asking you to make a donation but the reason for doing so is not to help someone else regain the dignity that living in poverty has taken away from them. No one knows better than the Salvation Army what modern urban poverty looks like and that ain't it.
Here's a hint as to what it does look like from the report the Salvation Army prepared when they launched the Dignity Project in Canada about a year ago:
Many individuals that are living in poverty experience difficulty retaining stable employment, due to challenges such as mental health issues and addiction that inhibit their success ...We could say a lot about that and I will next Monday in a post called "What's wrong with compassion?" For now, suffice to say, organizations like the Salvation Army no longer have any interest in associating realistic images of modern urban poverty with their appeals. And before we get too hard on them, we should consider that this campaign probably works and that is why they use it. Here is the image that went with that report a year ago:
Same general concept and yet different. I walk by the Salvation Army shelter every Friday morning, by the way, and vast majority of those I see are men. The few women most definitely do not wear make-up nor wear clothing anything like the young woman above.
But the man above isn't right either. He isn't smoking for starters. And he looks familiar doesn't he. Well, he'll look familiar to anyone old enough to have seen Peter Falk play Columbo. And while a Columbo lookalike probably doesn't pull in as much as the hot babe does, he does share something with her that I'll get to below.
What I'd like to suggest is that the ad works because it unintentionally succeeds on a different level from what it appears to be doing. To get that second sense, let's crop it just a smidge following the dividing line the creators have helpfully provided for us:
Now we can see that the picture is really aspirational. For even if we were to convince ourselves, against all odds, that she really was poor it would still be painfully clear that she doesn't need any help achieving dignity. She is a hip urban woman who embodies dignity and you, the unconscious suggestion goes, can also achieve dignity by donating to the Salvation Army. There is our potential donor at the bus stop in between her hot yoga session and the fair trade tea she is going to treat herself to when she gets home and her good friends at the Sally Ann feed her the perfect image of what she hopes she can be and associates that image with giving and something else.
The something else is religion. For cropping the picture like this also emphasizes the worshipful quality of it. The woman is reaching up. It's a content-free religion which isn't surprising in this day and age nor is it surprising from the Salvation Army which, while it definitely has a doctrine of belief, has long abandoned promoting that doctrine publicly. But it's perfect for someone who has found her yoga class meaningful but might wonder about the complete lack of any moral uplift associated with it. A problem that can me made to go away with a single donation ... "we accept all major credit cards; our operators are waiting".
The project manifesto gives it away:
I believe that:
- Everyone should have access to life’s basic necessities
- Poverty is a scourge on society that puts dignity out of reach
- People’s lives change when they are treated with dignity
- Everyone has a right to a sense of dignity
- The fight against poverty deserves my personal attention
Think about point #4 for a while: "Everyone has a right to a sense of dignity". That's one of those claims that means less the more you think about it. What is "a sense of dignity"? Why not say "Everyone has the right to dignity?" Well, to say that would kinda give it away wouldn't it? Charlie Sheen clearly as a sense of dignity but he doesn't actually have much dignity. The way it's put above hides the fact that dignity is a human achievement and there cannot, as a consequence, be a right to it. At most their might be a right to the pursuit of dignity (a point Jefferson fully grasped 236 years ago).
But a sense of dignity well that's something else. To believe in that doesn't require that we think even a second about what modern urban poverty—a phenomenon caused mostly by single-parent families, addiction and mental illness—is really like or about whether a loaf of bread would really make any difference. No, all this ad wants to make you think about is yourself and who you want to be.
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