10/8/13
Writ 101- Professor Bagwell
Sarah McLachlan’s BC SPCA Animal Cruelty Campaign Analysis
The power of an advertisement can have quite a big effect on some people. By focusing on their desired audience, salesmen and women can lure their customers into buying their product. Sarah McLachlan’s BC SPCA animal cruelty campaign advertisement evokes empathy towards abused and suffering animals making one feel guilty if they don’t call and help with the cause through visuals, audio, and text.
In this two minute long advertisement, the audience is entranced by the slow, angelic music playing in the background as well as being brought in by the multiple pictures of cute, whimpering animals on the screen. A speaker, Sarah McLachlan, is then shown on the screen to talk to the audience about all the good that can come just by picking up the phone and calling BC SPCA to save a life and become an “angel” for one of these suffering animals. Multiple times, she asks for those to call and help making it feel almost impossible for one to say no. Through this commercial, they truly make it hard for one to turn down the opportunity of making a difference and saving a life.
By focusing on one’s audience, one can reel people into buying their product very effectively. For this particular advertisement, it’s clear that the producers tried to direct their advertisement at animal lovers and pet owners. By showing multiple pictures of various breeds of cats and dogs, they are trying to get people to relate to the pet of their own and make them feel guilty for not helping them. Not only does this direct towards pet owners however, but also might even reel in lonely people who may have always wanted a pet. The advertisement claims that by helping a poor, suffering animal, one will be able to feel like that animal is now a pet of their own since they are offered a picture to take home of the animal they saved. Others would also say that this video may direct