Water-Aid

Who are the target audience ? How can you tell ?
How is the landscape of Africa represented in the advert ?
How are the people in Africa represented in the advert ?
How is the UK represented in the advert ?
What is the central message of the advert and how does it achieve this ?
Does the advert follow or subvert the conventions of the charity advert genre ?

The contemporary audience for this advert could be assumed to be familiar with the codes and conventions of both audio-visual adverts and those for charitable organisations in particular. The Water Aid advert reinforces charity advertisement conventions by including key information about the concern, a personalised narrative to which this information is relevant, and a direct appeal to the audience for money. The opening medium shot with a pullfocus between the digital radio and the rain against the window establishes the advert in a modern, British setting (the audio codes are of an announcer with an English accent). It’s connoted that the scenes that follow (in an unnamed but likely 
African country) are happening at the same time. The visual and audio codes work together to construct the narrative of “sunshine” (in Africa) “on a rainy day” (in Britain) with the associated problems of drought and “lack of access to clean drinking water” that the charity is aiming to relieve. Suspense is created through the enigmatic use of the slow-motion, medium close-up, low-angle tracking shot of Claudia’s feet and the swinging bucket (Barthes’ Hermeneutic Code) and emphasised by the crescendo of the song in the scene at the water pump over which the informative on-screen graphic appears. Barthes’ Semantic Code could be applied to the lines from the song used from 00.34 diegetically and then as a sound bridge over the medium shot of a group of women carrying water buckets on their heads: “make me feel, make me feel like I belong... don’t leave me, won’t leave me here”. The connotation here being that the text’s audience can help Claudia “feel like she belongs” and “won’t leave” her there / in that situation if they donate to Water Aid. The song’s title line “sunshine on a rainy day” is used over shots of children running, playing, laughing and the more positive connotations of this section of the advert are emphasised by the high key lighting used.A further visual binary opposition is created between the arid, washed-out, primarily beige and brown colour palette of the advert’s first third and the more vibrant colours. Launching the Rain For Good campaign, Water Aid said that it had “deliberately broken away from the traditional charity ad formula” in response to the public’s desensitisation to traditional fundraising tactics. The stereotypical ‘victim’ needing our help is an archetype with which the audience would be familiar from many other charity adverts. This would perhaps make the more positive representation of Claudia as a healthy, independent and musically talented woman stand out to an audience who might otherwise have become immune to the emotive representations conventionally deployed by this advertising sub-genre. The dress codes of the advert’s main female character include a stereotypical knee-length skirt and pink colour palette in both her top and shoes. Her age is similar to the other young women she walks past at and those who join her at the water pump. This connotes that she has perhaps had to “grow up too quickly” because of the tough environment in which she lives. Her independence is connoted by the wide- angled shot at in which she is denotedon her own on a long and empty dust road. Close-up shots using handheld cameras,her open, confident gesture codes and her smiling gesture code represent her as the advert’s protagonist and a ‘character’ with whom the audience can positively associate. Stuart Hall’s theory of representation – the images of a dry, dusty African environment in which people may be struggling to survive form part of the “shared conceptual road map” that give meaning to the “world” of the advert. The more positive audio codesthen work to challenge these stereotypical representations, creating enigmas around why Claudia appears to be so positive. The solution to these enigmas is given to the audience at  when we first see the water pump. David Gauntlett’s theory of identity – Claudia acts as a role model for the type of lifestyle changes that the audience could be responsible for creating if they donate to Water Aid.