Refuge: Christmas Eve

This bold and powerful ad clearly makes the viewer experience emotion proving its effectiveness. McCann Bristol designed this powerful ad for Refuge, which is an organization trying to protect women and children from domestic violence. Advertising for a concept such as this is difficult, because the material could be taken the wrong way or not leave enough of an impact that it deserves to leave. With an extremely simple design, there are lines of text in a plain font on a simple white background. This simplicity technique draws the reader in to begin reading the only thing on the board- the copy. The copy is left aligned and double spaced, appearing to look like a poem. As you continue to read, it somewhat makes sense and then it says to “read from bottom to top.” As the reader begins to read back to the top, you see that the once sweet story about a family’s sweet Christmas Eve is actually a story of domestic violence. This ad is extremely powerful, and the techniques of simplicity and powerful copy are moving to the viewer. If I was involved in this campaign, I would not only limit this advertisement to print but also extend it out to social media networks to have an increased amount of reach. Another way to improve it would be to possibly put an arrow by the top of the page or make the headline text larger to further draw in the viewer. The font could possibly be slightly larger, but not too large to detract the viewer from reading what looks like a chunk of text. I personally was drawn into this advertisement by wondering what the text said, and when it said to read it from bottom to top I was very moved. I took a picture of it and shared it over text with my friend, as I’m sure many others did with this advertisement. The potential for earned media is very high, which also adds to its impact. Overall, the creative idea of the copy and plain design leaves the reader with a powerful message and understanding of the gravity it carries with it.