Salvation Army breaks holiday campaign
By Adnews Staff
Charitable organization The Salvation Army has begun a holiday season campaign called, "Poverty Isn't Always Easy to See. Especially During the Holidays." Developed by Grey Canada of Toronto, the initiative is intended to attract donations and raise awareness of the issue of poverty in Canada. Media planning was handled by MediaCom. The campaign will run until the end of December.
The initiative makes use of a series of 360-degree images posted to Facebook. When first displayed, each image appears to depict a happy family posing for a holiday picture. However, when the user scrolls the image to reveal other areas, evidence of the family's poverty is revealed. The effort also includes television, radio, digital and print advertising also focusing on the theme that poverty is often hidden.
"With this campaign we've been striving to get the Canadian public to think differently about poverty in this country, and it's especially important to understand how hard the demands of the holidays are when you can't make simple ends meet," said Darlene Remlinger, president of Grey Toronto. "We want people to consider that those living in poverty go to great lengths to mask it. In a country this advanced and this wealthy, we need to shine a light on the issue since it's much closer than anyone believes it to be."