Oxfam and Wateraid

Oxfam is an organisation made up of around 20 different charitable organisations to try and get rid of global poverty. In some of their adverts that they make they use depressing music to make you think about how lucky you are compared to others and will try guilt trip you into donating to them. Also in adverts that they've make to show progress they like to mention how "they've" done something to help almost in the sense of bragging. One thing that does raise a question is instead of going out to these places and filming all the poverty they should just start helping straight away not spending money to advertise. I think the demographic for this advert 

However, in this advert the music is quite exciting rather than depressing. In the advert they show his dreams as he says he wants a 6 room house for his kids to experience a good lifestyle. With the water tap they have now it saves him 15 trips to the Nile and back. I think this advert is more effective then some of their other adverts as it gets the message across positively and doesn't try to guilt trip you into donating.

WaterAid is another charity that wants to help get rid of poverty and there slogan is "Extreme poverty won't end until everyone, everywhere has clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene. That's why we're here". WaterAids adverts does show poverty but in comparison to Oxfam they like to use upbeat/ exciting music to show how happy everyone is after receiving all the help. For example in one advert it showed a man who would carry around a ridiculous amount of water in a day but now he doesn't have to travel as far now they have the taps at a closer position. Also WaterAid doesn't say "look what we did" like Oxfam does in their advert. 

However, in this advert there is no music but the girl is singing about finding positivity even in the situation they're in but also shows the water tap and everyone around it laughing having a good time. Again like the above advert I think this is a more effective advert as it uses positivity and makes us all feel inclusive and that we are all working together to exterminate poverty.


Both advert use a voice over and will directly address "you" which makes it more powerful and will make you feel like you need to help. This could be seen as another way to try and guilt trip you into donating. Another phrase they use is "with your help" which makes you feel responsible for their current situation and only you can help them.