A Critique of the St. John Ambulance Advertising Campaign This paper aims to provide a critique of a St. John Ambulance advertising campaign – a company that teaches medical first aid techniques in a number of countries around the world. The campaign, entitled ‘Life Lost’, which was the first that St. John Ambulance produced for over fifteen years, contained a series of five ads, all of which had a similar theme and format that aimed to emphasise how crucial first aid skills are and how having such skills could save someone’s life. Each of the ads contains a portrait of a person who seems to be sleeping next to a letter, and after reading the letter, it become clear that the person is actually dead. Award-winning photographer Nadav Kander takes the photographs in the campaign, and it is hoped that by deconstructing these ads, it will be possible to glean some insights into the campaign, and the techniques used to attract the target audience. To begin with, Burtenshaw, Mahon & Barfoot (2011) note that in the future, advertising is likely to become increasingly less obvious, and that the viewers of advertisements will have to work increasingly hard to decipher the meaning of a particular advertisement due to consumers becoming more sophisticated. This is certainly the case with the ‘Life Lost’ campaign. Figure 1 show the first advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ series of advertisements, which shows a portrait of a girl who appears to be sleeping. However, upon closer inspection of the note next to her, it becomes apparent that she is not sleeping at all, but has in fact passed away.
Figure 1: The First Advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ Series
The idea behind the campaign is clearly to stir an emotional response in the viewer so that they become interested in learning first aid. In this ad, the five-year-old girl died by choking on a grape – something that could have been prevented with some basic first aid. The advertisement also cleverly does not include any writing with a
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large font, and thus, from distance, the viewer is left to wonder what the campaign is about – and has to get closer in order to read the letter and disentangle the mystery.
Figure 2: The Second Advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ Series
The aim of the ‘Life Lost’ series was likely to raise awareness for the organisation, to raise awareness of the importance of first aid in general, and possibly also to re-brand St John Ambulance and help people to better understand the charity. Figure 2 shows the second ad in this series, which this time shows a young male, who also appears to be asleep, and after reading the letter, it transpires that he had a motorcycle accident and died because nobody knew how to resuscitate him. For anyone who had read the first ad, they might have guessed that he had died, but the viewer’s curiosity is piqued by again displaying the letter with a small font, thus drawing the viewer in to learn more. MacRury (2009) notes how placing texts to optimise consumers’ engagements with the advertisement is crucial in contemporary advertisements, and with regards to this, the designers of the ‘Life Lost’ series seems to have given this element a lot of thought. Moore (1987: 217) says that it is “generally agreed that advertising only reaches people who are sympathetic to the message” and that people choose whether to read an advert or not. Therefore, it is likely that the ‘Life Lost’ series is targeting a certain market audience, and we can make an educated guess that this involves parents, or spouses who might be interested in learning first aid so that they can better protect the ones that they love. Thus, someone might see the advertisement in Figure 3, for example, and realise that a simple accident could take someone that they love if they don’t have some basic first aid skills, as this advertisement involved a woman who cut her leg and nobody knew how to stop the bleeding. Indeed, with around 1000,000 free first aid guides being distributed as a result of the campaign, and with some 14,000
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downloads of the first aid iPhone application, it seems that the campaign did reach people and have the desired effect (St. John Ambulance, 2011).
Figure 3: The Third Advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ Series
Sturken & Cartwright (2001: 209) state that “photographs always carry with them the connotation of photographic truth”, and the St. John Ambulance campaign uses this idea to great effect. Moreover, Sturken & Cartwright (2001: 209) go on to say that “text can often have a powerful effect in establishing the meaning of an advertisement, and changing the meaning of the photograph or image presented”. Thus, although the viewer of the ‘Life Lost’ series of ads might at first think that the people in the photographs are relaxing or asleep, the text soon reveals that they are not, and that the truth of the photograph are far more macabre. Figure 4 shows the fourth advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ series, with this time the death of a ten-year-old boy (who had died after slipping in a swimming pool) being the subject of inquiry. This time, the advertisement is clearly aimed at parents for its target audience, as the letter mentions the lack of first aid knowledge by his dad which ultimately led to his death. What is also interesting about these letters is that they seem to have been written post-mortem, with the people in the photographs explaining why they had died.
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Figure 4: The Fourth Advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ Series
There are two major methodologies that are used in the analysis and critique of advertisements, these being semiology and content analysis (Leiss, Kline & Jhally, 1997). Semiology (the science of signs) is a broad field of study that originated from the work of Saussure and Barthes, and involves the signification of language (McQuail, 1994). One of the key ideas in semiology is that images have both a literal, denotative meaning, and also a connotative meaning that is associated with the signified object. For the ‘Life Lost’ series, with the fact that the photo is black and white and is a Polaroid style with the white strip around the edge, there are some connotations of a morgue style photo, and the letters are also reminiscent of a suicide note, with each of the letters written in the style of the person who died (such as the little girl’s containing grammatical errors, and the Asian woman’s written in a Chinese style of writing). Moreover, the black and white nature of the photographs may be a connotation of the black and white nature of life and death, with some people’s life hanging in the balance depending on whether someone around them knows any first aid skills. Finally, the man in Figure 5, like the other people in the ads in the campaign, has his eyes closed and head to one side (as if on a gurney). This time, the letter reveals that he had a heart attack because nobody had recognised the signs leading up to the attack. Moreover, on this occasion, it is a sixty-one year old man, so the campaign covers the full demography from young to old, male and female. Thus, the intention here is likely to get as many people interested in first aid as possible.
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Figure 5: The Fifth Advertisement in the ‘Life Lost’ Series
In conclusion, the ‘Life Lost’ series of ads by St. John Ambulance has been successful on a number of levels. The small fonts in the letters tend to draw people in to find out more about the narratives in the campaign, and using photographs from a wide demographic means that more people will take an interest in the campaign, and in learning first aid. Moreover, with two of the five photographs featuring children and one a young man, this will help to get parents interested in taking a first aid course, as people are generally very protective about their children, and will do everything that they can to ensure their safety. Quantitative evidence from St. John Ambulance themselves suggests the campaign was a success, and that it reached a large number of people around the world (St. John Ambulance, 2011). However, it is also likely that the campaign raised awareness for St. John Ambulance as a company and charity as well, and modified their brand image as a result of this slick and sophisticated campaign. The very small logo of St. John Ambulance on each of the ads also helps to maintain that it is the lives of people that are important to the company, rather than the company itself. Thus, this critique has shown some of the power of advertising, and how contemporary advertisers can use techniques and strategies to draw viewers in, and to make their ads more interesting and memorable, particularly by using a series of ads that all have a similar theme. Therefore, the ‘Life Lost’ series of ads has been a success, and much can be learned from this advertising campaign.
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Bibliography Burtenshaw, K., Mahon, N. & Barfoot, C. (2011) The Fundamentals of Creative Advertising – 2nd Edition, Lausanne, Switzerland: AVA. Leiss, W, Kline, S. & Jhally, S. (1997) Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products & Images of Well-being, New York: Routledge. MacRury, I. (2009) Advertising, Oxon: Routledge. McQuail, D. (1994) Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction, London: Sage. Moore, S. (1987) Sociology Alive! Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Limited. St. John Ambulance (2011) ‘SJA Wins Twice at PA Awards’, St. John Ambulance [online], http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/about-us/latest-news/news-archive/news-storiesfrom-2011/june/sja-wins-twice-at-pr-awards.aspx, Date accessed 11/4/2014. Sturken, M. & Cartwright, L. (2001) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, E. (2010) ‘Nadav Kander Shoots for St John Ambulance’, Creative Review [online], http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/april/nadav-kander-shoots-forst-john-ambulance, Date accessed 11/4/2014.
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