We have all seen brands produce socially empowering ads to change their brand image and also simultaneously boost their sales on the new product. These branded ad campaigns have also been an effective tool for acquiring a new customer base. However, powerful advertisements produced by non-profit organizations have a more wider impact amongst the audience.
Advertisements produced by non-profit organizations are created to showcase the impact and the solution these organizations are providing to mitigate critical human issues that affect the quality of living.
Also read our blog on top feminist ad campaigns in India!
With the help of these advertisements, non-profits are promoting the cause so that people support it. Many non-profit organizations in collaboration with creative agencies produce advertisements to get more funding from the public or the donors.
Some have even been able to leverage volunteering support through these ad campaigns.
In the early 2000s, PETA India started promoting vegan and vegetarian lifestyles to reduce the rates of animal cruelty in the country by bringing in celebrity endorsements who support the cause and practice it in their daily lives. This helped in widening PETA India’s cause to every household in India.
In 2019, even Educate Girls endorsed Katrina Kaif to join their cause and produced an advertisement to showcase the new volunteer for their Team Balika programme. The ad and the celebrity endorsement helped the non-profit to draw new volunteers to join the cause of reducing education inequity in India.
Globally, many non-profit organizations have started collaborating with brands to get funding for their cause and even spread their impact to the audience who might be unaware of the interventions such non-profits are doing to solve social issues.
Other non-profits are leveraging influencers to widen their message and get more volunteers.
For instance, Teach For India had endorses, stand-up comedians, to come and spend a day with the kids and share their experiences. This was a marketing campaign to recruit more youth to apply for the Teach For India fellowship and improve the quality of classroom teaching in government schools.
Advertisements produced by non-profit organizations leverage both storytelling and data to champion their cause and disseminate their impact so that the general public becomes a part of their interventions to make the world a better place.
Let us look at the global advertisements produced by non-profit organizations
- Do Boondh Zindagi Ki- Unicef
Unicef India did a celebrity endorsement with Amitabh Bachhan to sent a message for parents in India to give their kids polio doses. The ad clearly portrayed the importance of how polio can be eradicated with immunization.
Do Boondh Zindagi Ke was soon picked up by the Indian government for the fight against polio.
Every radio and television network broadcasted this ad It helped to ensure that kids between the age group of 0-5 years get an oral polio vaccination.
- School Chale Hum- Ministry of Education
To ensure children between the ages of eight to fourteen get free and compulsory primary education at government schools, the Ministry of Education started the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to drive enrollment and bring kids back to school.
The advertisement School Chale Hum was broadcasted to gain popular support for this campaign. It is a visually powerful ad that shows students from all over India attending school and learning in their own mother tongue.
The wholesome and empowering ad showed the joy of learning in school that no child should miss.
- Ab Meri Baari Hai- Dasra
Dasra is a non-profit think tank and policy-making organization. It runs a 10-19 campaign for the empowerment of adolescents. The Ab Meri Baari advertisement showcased how youth after turning 18 must exercise their right to vote. Without exercising their power to vote, their demands will not be heard and welfare would not be possible.
The advertisement showed a beautiful story of two youth who wanted better access to education and opportunities but cannot because of their economic conditions.
Only with voting, they can bring the government who can introduce policies for the youth belonging to marginalized communities.
- #ShareYourStory- Breakthrough India
Breakthrough India is a non-profit organization that works on gender issues. To combat sexual harassment and eve-teasing in society, the organization launched a series of short ad films that showed mothers and sisters sharing their stories of harassment with their sons.
The ads had a clear message that men and boys need to learn at home to stop eve-teasing and harassing women on the road or at the workplace.
- Lullaby- Cry
This thought-provoking ad film by the non-profit organization, Child Rights and You, showcased how young children involved in bonded labor lose out on their childhood.
Their future gets shut behind the brick walls as they drop out of school and work in mines and construction sites.
The film is against existing child labor practices prevalent in the country which deprives their right to be educated
- Dobara Pucho- The Live Love Laugh Foundation
The Live Love Laugh Foundation by Deepika Padukone advocates for mental health and depression.
Depression is a taboo in India and because nobody speaks about it, many people end their lives due to this mental illness.
The ad film ‘Dobara Pucho’ focuses on breaking the stigma and asking people and loved ones about their mental health. Through this patients with depression can get support and medical help for recovery.
