Watch this and weigh in: Stunning storytelling or cartoonish composite?
- Sat, July 03 2010
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
The nonprofit Nanhi Kali, which seeks to change the lives of impoverished girls, just launched an unusual campaign with a unique storytelling gambit: an animated character whose life path is determined by the donations the organization received.
You can check out the Girl Story campaign here.
Says Nanhi Kali:
The story follows the path of a young girl named Tarla—a character based on a composite of real-life girls that Nanhi Kali has helped in the past. Tarla wants to go to school to better her life. Whether Tarla succeeds, however, is up to the viewer, as her story will progress only via audience donations unlocking new chapters. Viewers who donate will receive updated emails on Tarla’s progress and journey. They will also receive a thank you email for their contribution from Tarla herself. Should viewers choose not to donate, Tarla’s story ends there, in parallel circumstances to what happens to many girls in real life who don’t have the resources they need to succeed.
Here’s what I like about the campaign: It’s based in storytelling, it’s focused on impact and it encourages donor engagement. We need more of all of those things in our sector. Bonus points for the fact it’s also unusual.
Here’s what I’m not sure about: Tarla is an animated figure, not real, and I can’t really help her. She’s a stand-in for other girls I might help, but her story lacks the immediacy of real people for me. Fundraisers often use composites, but adding a cartoon on top of a composite and making the interaction game-like (donate to see more) seems to add further abstraction to the human impact of a gift. I asked the organization and their creative firm (Strawberry Frog) about this fact, and Creative Director, Josh Greenspan said via email:
“We knew from the beginning that we wanted an animated story. We can only guess at the psychology behind it, but frequently, animated stories are viewed as more emotional than live action ones. Perhaps the issue becomes ‘too real’ when faced with a person in need, especially a child. That said our goal wasn’t to create an animated sob story. It was extremely important to us that Tarla be a strong and determined character. Yes, she’s seen crying in the film series, but she wants your donations, not your pity. Throughout the story Tarla defies social dogma, gender discrimination, disapproving parents and more. These are not the deeds of a pathetic young girl looking for a handout. We believe that the simple animation style and gritty filmic quality provides a compelling and honest feel, while not overshadowing a truly inspirational story.”
I’m not sure that a cartoon will elicit the reactions that a real person would, but the story is certainly compelling and donors have surprised me before. So I asked about fundraising results - and was told it is too early to tell.
So, folks, what do you think? Will this work?
UPDATE: I asked Jeff Brooks of Future Fundraising Now Blog his thoughts (because I put a LOT of stock in his take) and here’s what he said:
I’ll be surprised if this works. The problem is, it’s NOT REAL. You can sponsor a real child through any number of excellent child sponsorship organizations, and they’ll give you a real story of a real child whose life you helped transform. Given that, why would a cartoon story be compelling?
The cartoon is not emotional. The strongest thing it has is fake tears. Where’s the real desolation of poverty and ignorance? Making it a cartoon just emphasizes the lack of reality here.
Comments
As someone who has worked with a children’s agency for the past three years, I can understand the appeal of doing something like a cartoon. It’s so difficult in live action to get the right emotion out of actors and/or stock style images.
I’m interested to see where they take this, although they’ve done a horrible job of optimizing their YouTube video to make it easy for someone to go to the next step and/or donate.
Sorry but this video seems weak, it does not grab the emotional heartstrings and the call to action can be easily passed up! a human face would be much better as the viewer could make eye contact (of a sort) and have someone to identify with.
Nice video about girls story also i like this animation
This project misses the mark from my perspective. The video doesn’t engage me or compel me to take action. The animation and music are actually pretty dreamy rather than motivational and inspiring. In theory the idea may have worked, but in practice if falls short.
I watched the video twice but can’t see any meaning in it, if you want to make people donate, you must put something touching their hearts in the video, but the content of this video is just barren.
I have been involved with fund raising.
I dont think that the cartoon approach ifs a good way to reach the donors who were my target audience.
However, story telling has been very effective.
I am not really sure if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your
great job is clearly identified. I was wondering if you offer any subscription to your RSS feeds as I
would be very interested and can’t find any link to subscribe here.
I find this a really interesting idea! Will it work? I don’t know…the concept is great, but I don’t know if the conception is quite good enough?! Still, I think it’s something that can be worked on and definitely has potential!
understand the appeal of doing something like a cartoon. It’s so difficult in live action to get the right emotion out of actors and/or stock style images.
I think this will do very well with women who have daughters. I think something like this lets potential potential dontators use their imagination.
Great POST!
I don’t think the video is meaningful. It can not touch people’s heart!
My expertise is raising money for profit companies and was doing it for 20 years before I decided to come and help raise money for non-profits. Any time you come up with a innovative idea to tell a story your are a head of the game and ahead of your competition. I think this group is absolutely on to something that could be huge. Well done
I think there have been some interesting comments so far - great post!
The concept behind this is really unique as well as the simplicity of the story and design.
From past experience working with non-profits that help women, it can be very difficult to find women that would like to share there story with photos/video. This is an interesting way to do this but for some people it may not pull on their heart strings enough to elicit action.
The big thing that could make this better is to subtly add a logo or url about who is sponsoring this. It would allow more people to be aware of Nanhi Kali.
I’ll be interested to see what results come from this campaign and how it is promoted. I hope it goes very well for them.
Good idea but I think the video is lacking something to connect with the people.
I have several non-profit clients that I work with on a daily basis, so I can affirm that what you explain in this article is quite a unique way of reaching your targeted audience. I think it will be a complete success.
I like the idea of animated video. Bu this short video does provide too much details on this girl, so it won’t help a lot.
Infact the video is no that great and meaningful! It would have been better if this is presented in a different way without a cartoon appeal, but I think this theme has great potential and will work
It’s a good idea having an animated video for a campaign. It will always depend on the person if it will catch his emotions. But I think it would be better to show the positive results that these campaigns have done to impoverished children. The true emotions will come out from the warm hearts of the people when they see such unprivileged child benefiting from the donations of others. Personally, once I actually see that the money or donation is being used for such purpose, without hesitation, i will donate as long as I have something to offer.
I am agreeing with anthony here. Friend told me once “tell the right story and everyone will buy what you have” and that works for profit or non-profit
I like the message the video is trying to send, but I think the video would need to give more detail to pull in more people to this story.
For the brief clip, I thought it was well done. Keep up the good work.
Thats a really great video but they left out the part where they need to show how you can make a difference and donate at the end of the animation anybody else agree with this?
The cartoon may not be professionally great, but the thought is simply beautiful. It’ll reach out to more hearts.