Easier Said Than Done : Abstract Art or Fundraising?

Heres how really, really bad nonprofit marketing happens.

That's assuming the symbolism isn't completely inept, in which case nobody will even figure it out in the first place.

Speaking of inept …
Thirty-second TV spot. Scene: A beautiful woman dressed in a billowing gown walks toward the camera. Quick cuts show her in various odd positions, as well as close-ups of boiling water, steam and other hard-to-place visuals. The woman whispers inaudibly and seems to be eating noodles. Finally, we land on a still image of a jar of spaghetti with the words, "Spaghetti pour elle." And, uh … the screen goes dark with the words, "Food shouldn't feel like a luxury," followed by a microscopic phone number and Web address.

I've been in fundraising for a long time. Of all the issues you try to get folks to respond to, hunger is the most straightforward. People just get it. They want to do something about it. Raising money to fight hunger is the fundraising equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

But when the agency guys (or maybe it was their interns) got the assignment, they decided to create a philosophical abstraction that stands for hunger: an airy castle built around the notion that for some people, food is unattainable, like a "luxury." To make that point, they used the weird conventions of luxury advertising.

OK. That's vaguely clever. But it's miles away from a call to action to help people in need. If anyone takes the trouble to figure out the puzzle, she might come away with a vague sense of outrage. Or a bemused smile at the upside-down values of our world.

But donations to help? I wouldn't bet on it.

The fair question to ask is this: Why would anybody do that kind of advertising? Answer: It's a way for ad agencies to pad their portfolios and win awards. Sadly, you can — they sometimes do — win awards with work like this. The cost, though, is millions of dollars worth of wasted opportunity.

Like we see here …
Thirty-second TV spot. Scene: Brightly colored ?stick-figure people zoom past the camera and fade in the distance. A familiar voice with a thick, provincial British accent starts, "Imagine every child, no matter where in the world they were, could access a universe of knowledge." The stick people begin to resolve into the image of a face … John Lennon! Imagine! I get it! John urges us to change the world, the way he tried to do with his music. The final seconds display a Web address.

Whatever else you might say about this spot, you have to recognize the accomplishment of working through the legal thicket of permissions to use the face and voice of Lennon. Good show, legal department! But getting Yoko to say yes doesn't move you one inch closer to motivating other people to action.

John Lennon might be the coolest human of the last hundred years. But even he has to be specific and emotional to get people to respond with donations. Even John has to tell them what you want them to do, and why; be clear and compelling. (I bet he would, too, given the chance.)

But the ad agency guys? They're allergic to the ?specific and obvious. Those things don't stand a chance with the awards judges, who want the edgy, clever, obtuse and unusual — not the literal and straightforward. So the ad guys stay as far away from specificity as they can get.

Let me give you a little warning label. It could save you and your organization a lot of trouble in the future. I urge you to clip and post the following paragraph:

Do not talk to representatives from ad agencies. They are armed with abstract ideas, and they are very skilled at making you think these ideas are good. If you are approached, do not agree to anything; ?carefully leave the area and flee.

Your cause and your fundraising are too important to hide behind edgy abstractionism. Leave the abstract expressionism to the artists. They do it way better than the ad guys. FS

Jeff Brooks is creative director at TrueSense Marketing and keeper of the Future Fundraising Now blog. Reach him at jeff.brooks@truesense.com