Save the Children’s latest ad showing the birth of a real child in Liberia does what any commercial should. It grips you from the start and leaves you remembering a simple, straightforward message: in this case, that a million kids die every year around the world on the day that they’re born.
Yes, we feel slightly uneasy and I’m sure that some people will accuse the charity of being unnecessarily shocking. But isn’t the message behind the ad shocking too? As a father of two kids, who’s witnessed a couple of births at first hand, the footage doesn’t hit me emotionally. But the caption does.
Hard to believe that this is from the same ad agency that brought us the John Lewis Bear and Hare commercial at Christmas.