August 28, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
A new advertisement by Médecins Sans Frontières UK, the British arm of Doctors Without Borders, is generating controversy— and the charity is actively participating in the debate.
The stark ad, which began appearing in British movie theaters this month, was a deliberate effort to try something different in nonprofit marketing, the group writes on its Web site.
Several blogs are debating whether the video is exploitative or stereotypes Africa.
The charity’s Web editor has joined the conversations, welcoming the discussion about the ad. “Even if we find out it doesn’t ‘work,’ the experience for MSF of directly engaging with people (and visa versa) and having a meaningful and open dialogue is priceless,” he writes on the blog of Duckrabbit, a British documentary production company.
On the Aid Watch blog, Laura Freschi, associate director at New York University’s Development Research Institute, says the ad is striking, but may be too bleak.
“After watching this ad several times (I don’t recommend you try this),” she writes, “I feel 1) deranged and 2) hopeless, as though nothing I could ever do, much less donate a few dollars to MSF, could possibly have any effect on the vast, incomprehensible suffering in the world.”
Ms. Freschi does note that the ad has done its job in one sense; it got people talking.
“But was all the attention really worth such an exploitative video?” she asks.
The ad is below.
What do you think of the ad?
