Really powerful advert for the new British Red Cross campaign (sponsored post)

In an increasingly crowded marketplace and with everyone feeling the pinch financially, charities are having to work harder than ever to get their messages across (although note to charities, people with clipboards being overlay matey in the street are not the way forward!).

For their new campaign I Am A Crisis, the British Red Cross wanted to tackle the public perception that they were mainly charged with helping people oversees by publicising the huge amount of work they do here in the UK where they help a million people every year.

The advert sees a mysterious hooded young woman wandering through both the town and the countryside, a personification of a crisis who reels off the amazingly diverse range of issues with which the Red Cross can help – from a fire that makes you homeless to an inability to pick up an important prescription.

It’s beautifully shot and hauntingly atmospheric – the woman addresses the camera directly and is accompanied by a strange, dark Alsatian to ramp up the sinister ambiance. The idea of a crisis as something that can happen to anyone (“I don’t care who you are”) is powerfully communicated and you can’t help feel you’d want the organisation on your side in the event she visited you.

This is a great example of a traditional advertising campaigning doing what it does best, raising awareness in a compelling, memorable way.

This post was sponsored by the British Red Cross.