Project 2: Effectiveness of Gloom Campaigns

While researching for thes project I ended up having a long discussion with one of my friends about "Gloom Campaigns" and their effectiveness. I did some research and found some campaigns and designs that I felt were effective, even though they are clearly gloomy and depressing.
I found two campaigns addressing world hunger and poverty. One that I felt was very strong, and another that I thought could be stronger.

Poverty.com is the campaign that I felt could be stronger. The lead graphic with the world map and pictures of individuals popping up, accompanied by a running tally of approximated deaths per hour due to hunger, followed by names gives the site a eulogy type feel. This is effective for causing awareness, but the somberness of it is extremely gloomy. Also it requires the viewer to have a certain level of empathy, to be able to feel connected to these names, faces, and numbers. On top of the gloom factor the site then offers a very limited amount of ways that you can help, leaving the viewer feel helpless and defeated.
http://www.poverty.com/

1 Billion Hungry was the other campaign I came across. I really liked this campaign because it encouraged individuals to "Get Mad" which is a more effective than depressing people and making them feel guilty. It also immediately gives you a petition to sign online, so it takes almost no effort to get started. It still represents the severity of the hunger epidemic, but does not place guilt or blame on the viewer.

These are some other campaign ad's I liked, because they humanized large issues:

NY Times Article

I was listening to NPR all morning while getting ready for class, so when I got to campus and picked up the NY Times the front page news was no longer new news to me. So I started  flipping through the pages and got to an article entitled "The Old Panhandler? Wait, Is That...." The article is about 97 year old comic legend Professor Irwin Corey (I had never heard of him so I took sometime watching videos on YouTube). Mr.Corey leaves his home in NY everyday to panhandle on the streets of Manhattan. Why does a comic legend need to be panhandling? He doesn't, he collects the money not for himself, but to buy medical supplies for children in Cuba.
I would really like to travel to Manhattan just to hug Mr.Irwin, and thank him.

With the focus of my next project being Apathy, and not having time to care, this was just what I needed to reassure myself that there are people who care, and care quite a lot at that!

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/a-familiar-figure-begs-on-the-street-but-not-for-himself/