Charity Advertising

[Addictedtothepc]

AIBU to think that charities like Care UK, no matter how worthy they think they are, should not be targeting children watching Scooby Doo on Boomerang - showing them graphic clips of gravely ill & starving children, pleading with them to end the suffering by just calling a number on the screen.

What's your problem with this? Do you think our dc shouldnt know anything of children suffering elsewhere? Are we to teach them to bury their heads in the sand like most of the adult population?

It's got to be better than the usual ads for plastic tat aimed at children, pedalling an 'i want it' selfish consumer culture.

YABU

I don't think kids needs to see graphic images and be persuaded to call a number - they have no credit card, no bank account. I feel Care should target people with the ability to pay and if their intention is to educate chjildren then that should be done is a more appropriate way.
Lots of things happen in this world which are horrendous it doesn't mean we want our 6 years old to know about it - they don't have the emotional maturity to deal with it and don't have the means to fix it.

YANBU. I'm all for children learning about those worse off but presenting deliberately shocking images, out of context and without explanation, is not the way to do it. Confusing, potentially extremely distressing and unlikely to raise any money (how many children do you know with a credit card?)

I agree that Boomerang isn't the best place to find people with money to give (then again, you saw it op) but they've probably bought an advertising 'package' which will give them a certain amount of exposure across many different channels.

And I still don't think children need to be shielded from this kind of thing. You call them 'graphic' images - I guess that means images of very malnourished children. I can remember seeing images like that on newsround when I was that age. It made me ask my parents lots of questions. They were answers I needed to know.

I think Newsround was brilliant at stories like this- it pitched its stories perfectly so that children could understand what was happening without being confused or traumatised by it.

I don't know how old the OP's children are but mine are certainly too young to really get advertising- if they see an ad suggesting they buy a particular toy they take that as an impartial instruction, not a marketing message (they're 3 and 1 BTW) so I try to avoid commercial channels as much as possible or watch them with them. They simply can't filter out the marketing from the rest. I think charity ads have the same problem- they're not just there to raise awareness but to compete for your money against all the other charities out there. I think their objectives and methods are therefore generally different to those of impartial programmes like Newsround. Most humanitarian disasters have multiple complex causes, which charitable donations (for all they're important) can't address- all most charities can do is deal with the results. Charity ads understandably don't explain this- they suggest that you can make it better for little Child X just by donating £10 now- a gross oversimplification which adults can understand but young children can't. I'm not sure very young children can properly understand how money works at all TBH (in the sense of earning/budgeting/spending) which makes it rather unfair to tug on their heartstrings for a donation.

Waah, I'm such a windbag this morning, sorry. I just wanted to say that I think there's a big difference between impartial and sensitive reporting aimed at children (like Newsround) and advertising.

I totally agree Knownowt that there is a difference between charity adverts and newsround. I was making the point that the images are very similar. And I agree that a 3yr and 1yr old couldn't possibly make sense of what they are seeing. I wouldn't let my 1yr old watch any adverts either.

The OP thinks her 6 yr old shouldn't see images of suffering children. IMO a 6yr old is old enough to have these things explained to them. The advert may well cause some thinking and questioning, and worry, but they are just as likely to see the advert during a normal family show they might be watching with their parents as they are during a cartoon on Boomerang. They need a loving parent to explain and help them understand what it's about.

What's the alternative? Ban charity ads? Only show them after watershed? Charities are struggling enough to survive without curtailing their marketing strategies so as not to offend the sensibilities of those children lucky enough not to have seen this kind of suffering in real life.

The following day on Boomerang we were then subjected to images of a very skinny dog tied up and distressed - don't know which charity that ad belonged to as I managed to get to the off button more quickly this time.

I will explain the realities of life to my kids in my own time and in the manner in which I feel is appropriate. We don't buy battery hen eggs because of the horrendous cruelty involved in the production of them - I have explained to my kids about what happens to abused farm animals but I don't believe they are old enough to deal with the images.

And it's the same for poverty and famine, we talk about it but images can be very powerful and distressing and imo 6 year old is too young to deal with it.

Yes I saw the ad too but that was by pure chance, I usually don't choose to sit through Scooby for fear an ad may be unsuitable. When I choose to show my child images of suffering I'd like to have the opportunity to do it in my way rather than have it forced upon us.

My 6 year old only started watching commercial TV this summer, we have talked about advertising but imo charities should not be deliberately distressing children as a method of pulling in funds. No one is talking about banning charity advertising - but why choose an exclusive kid's channel like Boomerang?

Anyway the best protest is the off button, Boomerang is now banned in this house!