Save the Children Campaign, the Analysis

Save the Children Campaign, The Analysis

Introduction:

The organization that I chose to analysis is the Save the Children Campaign. This organization relies heavily upon ethos and pathos to get support for their cause. This organization uses many means to get their point across to people. This organization uses the emotional appeal to their advantage and mostly they use this technique to get donations and volunteers. The use of credibility strategies has helped the organization also with receiving donations and getting people to volunteer. The mission of Save the Children is to create lasting, positive changes in the lives of children in need. Save the Children works to achieve this mission through community-based programs designed to ensure sustained improvements and benefits for children, families and communities. Save the Children main focuses are child protection, economic opportunities, education, health, HIV/AIDS, hunger and malnutrition, and saving newborn lives. This organization use a variety of techniques, the techniques are ethos, pathos, visual persuasion, celebrity selling power, and image management to establish themselves as a credible organization.

Background:

Save the Children began serving children in the United States in 1932 in response to The Great Depression. Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating real and lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world. It is a member of the International Save the Children Alliance, comprising 27 national Save the Children organizations working in more than 110 countries to ensure the well being of children. This organization is a non-governmental agency providing technical assistance and funding throughout the world.

The way Save the Children helps people, they respond to any emergency that puts at great risk the survival, protection, and well-being of large numbers of children, where addressing the needs and well-being of those children is beyond the indigenous coping capacity, and where Save the Children is able to assemble the financial and human resources to take urgent action on their behalf. According to Charles MacCormack, President, Save the Children "There is much work to do, and when nearly a billion children go to bed hungry, neglected or abused every night, we cannot wait." Today, Save the Children is recognized as a leading independent child-assistance agency creating real and lasting change for children in need in 12 states and in more than 40 developing countries (Shriver).

Analysis and Critique

The use of Ethos:

O'Keefe defines the concept of ethos as "judgments made by a perceiver concerning the believability of a communicator" (Gass 76). Other important features of credibility include that it is a multidimensional construct, meaning that it represents a combination of several characteristics, and also that it is a situational and contextual experience. In other words, the traits that may be admired in one situation, may be looked upon unflatteringly in the next, therefore, credibility is subject to change based on the audience or setting (Gass 77). Exactly how credible is this organization? This organization entire program centers on their credibility.

Save the Children Campaign has found it use to useful the following credibility strategies. First, they provide information to show that they have firsthand experience or some other kind of authority on the subject. Second, they choose examples and lines of reasoning or rational appeals that their audience can relate to. Finally, they use specific facts, ideas, and reasoning accurately (Persuasive). They do this because they know if their ideas are too over the top their target audience will not respond in the way want them to.

This organization tries very hard to keep up their credibility. There was a study performed in Korea; the study was to examine the effect of the online information credibility on trust relationships more prissily organizations. The experiment was designed with 184 participants to implement the test. The results showed that media source type and news content exerted significant effects on media credibility and trust relationships with organizations. The subjects perceived as more credible newspaper news stories than those posted in online press releases. Specifically, the news audience is more likely to believe traditional journalistic sources when faced with negative reports about organizations. Moreover, a significant correlation between media credibility and trust relationships suggests that media source credibility has an influence on the trust relationships (Jo 58).

Celebrity Selling Power:

A persuader leads a persuadee to pursue some goal out of a free choice. For example by convincing him or her that the proposed goal is useful for some other goal that the persuadee already has (Poggi 297). According to the textbook one in five television commercials features a famous person, this is to help with the credibility of the organization or the product (Gass 74). This campaign grasped this idea and ran with it. They not only got a superstar, but they got one of the biggest superstars, Brad Pitt, to help with their campaign. Brad Pitt recently toured Africa with the AIDS advocacy group DATA, and visited Save the Children programs in Ethiopia to promote the ONE Campaign. On his trip, Brad visited the HIV/AIDS and microfinance programs. People can join Brad in the fight against global AIDS and poverty by signing the ONE Campaign Declaration.

Brad Pitt is not the only celebrity that is standing up for what is right. The Save the Children Campaign has gotten a great number of celebrities to speak out for the organization in their "Speak Out Campaign". Actress Sara Rue, from the television show Less Than Perfect, was quoted as saying, "Peace is definitely possible, but it is done step-by-step. Save the Children is doing wonderful work, and that is where we need to start: with our children" (Rue).

Image Management:

This organization has an image and reputation to protect. The Save the Children organization is in the business of keeping up a good image of helping children all over the world. Now this organization is helping children in the United States. Save the Children launched a multi-media public service announcement campaign, featuring Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field and the song "Imagine" by the late John Lennon, to call attention to the agency's efforts to aid thousands of Gulf Coast children