Did anyone else get that v. upsetting 'baby names book' from the NSPCC this morning?

[tigertum]

This morning I got a mailer from the NSPCC asking for monthly contributions. Enclosed was a leaflet designed to look like a baby names book and under each letter was a childs name and underneath a brief desciption of how this child (mostly under two, one at only 9 weeks old) had died of abuse. Many of the deaths were horribly violent and had been at the hands of parents. I read it, and it had me in tears. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry again.

I already contibute to Oxfam every month and DP and I have agreed on this amount and we cant change it. The letter enclosed began with something like 'as a new mum', so I was probabbly targeted as a mother, possibly who is on record of being a regular contributer to a charity.

Yes, it was very effective in that it made me feel incredibly upset and depressed/angry at he world that this kind of thing can happen. As I sat, blothcy faced, staring at this 'baby names book', I couldn't decide if it's right or not for something that distressing should land on my door step oiut of the blue, especially if I was targetted by this mail because on some database somewhere I am logged as a mum who contributes to charities.

Did anyone else get this mail, what's your opinion?

...but did you give any money puff (or remember which charity it was...)

yes I did - fairly sure it was Cancer Research, but for me it doesn't matter exactly which cancer charity it was. Even dh, without me saying anything, remarked on it being good and a breath of fresh air (he is extremely cynical about charities for personal reasons) and asked me to add more to the donation.

It is an unfortunate thing in this country that as a collective society we have become blase to the issue of child abuse. We hear more retoric from the govt and leading politicians on the plight of the 3rd nations/middle east than we do our own children (I'm not saying that these children are any less important btw). If it takes something shocking to spur people into action, then I don't think it can be a bad thing.

As the original poster, I've just read this thread and have had time to mull things over since receiving the mailer. I have to say that I totally agree with what Lemonaid has said. For me, personally, if I had received the kind of mailer that Lemonaid described, I would have been more inclided to contribute to the NSPCC.

If those poor children's names and what had happened to them had been enlosed on a blank sheet of paper entiled 'Why we do this' along with the above, then that would have been enough and more effective for its simplicity. Those kind of stories don't need 'clever' marketing ideas IMO. They are shocking enough on their own. I think there needs to be an element of positivity in this kind of appeal. The 'this is jaw-droppingly shocking but do this and we can help like this, like we did for this person' factor. The way it was presented to look like a baby names book turned my stomach and made me feel deeply sad and bleak for the world. I feel bad describing it as 'sick' and 'dark' because thats how you would describe the subject matter, but if I am totally honest thats how I found it. It crossed a line somehow and having read this thread I think the NSPCC should change tact. As I said, a blank sheet of paper with those kind of details would have been enough and more effective for it. I don't want to kept in the dark, ever, but I don't want to be made aware of things in that way and I don't think we need to be. The facts should stand for themselves.

In a nutshell, if I'd recieved information on what the NSPCC are doing, what they have done, what they need my money to pay for and how it will hep. The terrible truth of what goes on, not in any kind of 'baby names book/birthday card' format, with a bit of hope that something CAN be done to stop it, then I wouldn't have started this thread in the first place and may have tried to contribute to them.

Message withdrawn

The best "emotional blackmail" campaign I saw was by Cancer Research who did had "missing people" in the lives of survivors, played "Fields of Barley" by Sting.

although, like everyone else I think the NSPCC is digging a hole for itself, I realise that I don't actually know the numbers.
Do "shock" campaigns work ?
IE does the revenue increase or decrease ?

Given the comments around here, and my own experience I assume it doesn't work, but does anyone here actually know the facts ?

Haven't read the whole thread, but did post I'd received this a few months back (can't remember exactly when - I was pg with DS2).

Made me want to give to any charity but the NSPCC. Vile, vile, vile campaign dreamt up by some zealous fucker who loathes people, it would seem.

i think a lot af people need to re asses values here.
nspcc has only one aim.
to prevent abuse.
They are not zealouts but if they were then what better group to be zealous about than the perverts and abusers who trash childrens lives every day?

Absolutely. Be zealous about that. Just not in a fucked-up fashion, which IMO this mailshot was.

ok....i admit i have not seen it

I don't doubt the NSPCC has only one aim.
However, I think what people are worried about here is that the aims of the charity and the aims of the people who are in control of it have stopped being the same thing.
Happens to organisations of all kinds, it's so common that there's a whole respectable branch of economics, "agency theory" where they study the difference between what you pay people for and what they actually do.

It think its more that times change and like any company, they have to be marketed - they need to raise money and how do they do that from the everyday person on the street? They can't rely on people to wake up one day and think hmmmm today I'll donate some money to NSPCC. They need to go out there and tell people what they're doing and maybe the plain and simple messages aren't doing the trick anymore so the more extreme ones are designed to be blatant about what these kids go through. I have to say that all the baby names book and adverts etc is remind me how lucky I was as a child, and how protective I feel over my own and how awful I feel that any child out there has to go through the things these kids do. I don't feel I'm being emotionally blackmailed I feel I'm having it spelt out in black and white the truth behind some of the net curtains in this country that noone seems to want to know about anymore.

Marketing has been a major activity of charities for decades, and we don't doubt the need for some "edge" to the adverts
I just feel that these adverts have more to do with internal politics at the NSPCC than revenue maximisation.

Domini i do know some of the facts ( I work in the industry)and can assure you these campaigns do work, the Cancer Research UK campaign you describe was hugely successful in raising money and awareness of the campaign (although it showed people surviving cancer as well as dying)

If these campaigns were not successful (and there are some the are not) they would not be repeated

for those who find NSPCC shocking...wakeup and smell the coffee.
No matter how 'distasteful and upsetting'you find it, putting it in the bin dosn't take away from the fact it does happen. Children live this life continuously,if you think the leaflets and adverts are tough,put yourself in someone elses shoes and recognise that it is infact 10xworse forsome. People who find it too tough and distasteful to look at are generally the ones who bury their in the sands and don't want to acknowledge that this goes on within their families,friends and neighbours. Unfortunatly this attidude allows child abuse to breed. Personally I don't give to the charity,simply cos I work for something similar, but if you choose not to give at least recognise that it happens and not ignore what happens

tricking people does not make child abuse go away though, does it?

having worked within the NSPCC for a while and seen the case studies on some of the children they have had involvment with, i can say with complete honesty...what they publish in those ad campaigns are not shocking. they are absolutley PG rated compared to some of the vile things that have happened to some of these children.

i hope that you looked at that booklet, i hope you felt shocked by it and i hope that it has affected you enough for you to mention it to your freinds and family.
I woudl also hope that you feel strongly enough about the welfare of yuor own children to contribute something, however small, to the charity.

I agee Sorrell. I'd rather they hit me straight between the eyes with it, than dress it up in some bloody pretent baby names book.

My mother hung herself because she never came to terms with abuse she suffered as a child. I have no illusions about the hell that some children (too many sadly) are put through. But I'd like my kick up the arse about making donations served neat - it doesn't need f*ing dressing up IMO. Don't piss about with my head. Tell me straight up why you need my money.

Those cancer ad's with 'Fields of Braley' playing always made me well up

As for these baby names ones, i haven't had one but if i do i will make myself bin it and not read it. I have heard and read and seen things that will haunt me forever. DP himself has worked with abused children for years and has told me things that have made me sob. Last time i was really pissed off at him and told him to NEVER tell me details like that again I don't think i'm burying my head in the sand at all, i am very *very8 cautious with my children . Probably too much so some would say, because of the fear of evil people out there.

I absolutely know in sickening detail what can happen, i just don't want to read about it.
I think these ad's go too far.
Also fwiw, i thought the Advert for the NSPCC a few years back with the American Army guy shouting at the Mother and pretending to be the baby were wrong too. I felt they were 'justifying' why Parents reach the end of their tether and abuse!

Thre is a diffrence between "smelling the coffee" and throwing it in people's faces.
Being parents, we are generally more amenable to the NSPCC than the average, yet on this thread I see very few saying that the NSPCC has got it right.

Maybe that makes us bad or insensitive people, I've been called that on MN more than once, but to change the world you have to deal with the way it is, not indluge in whatever bizarre from of inward looking politically correct monologue, the leaders of the NSPCC find "cool".

I accept that far far worse things happen than the NSPCC would ever be allowed to show happen every single day.
If gruesome pictures worked, then I would be the first to write a check. I didn't get them, because of the money I've given in the past I get pestered, and that's fine, but to me the worst two campaigns were the silly "full stop" campaign and the PC one about stpooing yourself abusing kids which as far as I could tell said "middle class people are abusers, you're middle class, so you're bad".
The NSPCC can afford the best brains that the ad agency contains. Many would work for free or for a small % of their normal take.
My local children's hospice deals with truly bad and sad stuff. Being a hopsice, it doesn't have "happy endings". They get far less than 1% of the revenue and access to celebrities, media, etc that the NSPCC just has lying around.
Yet their little posters are just so much better than anything I've seen from the NSPCC in a decade.

No one here, including me has expressed any doubt that the NSPCC's work is important. Not one word has been said that the NSPCC exaggerates.
Quite the contrary.
We all want the NSPCC to be successful.
It ain't.
That's bad.