I used to play with a squirt gun when I was in elementary school. Though it can get nasty sometimes when you fill a squirt gun with urine, a squirt gun has never been life-threatening in my life; and probably most of you feel the same way as I do. A squirt gun is just a toy filled with some liquid, mostly water.
Then what is the advertisement trying to show by having a girl holding a squirt gun in the picture?
We live in a society where 900 millions of people are living without clean water and 4,100 children die of water-related diseases. Moreover, the water-related death rate of children is claimed to be higher than the war-related death rate of children.
Suppose that you have not drunken a drop of water for a week and your only choice is a drinking water full of bacteria. Would you drink it? I would if that is the only choice.
So, in this hazardous situation, UNICEF (the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) decided to raise attention on this issue. UNICEF intended to encourage people to be aware of this situation by displaying a photo in which a girl is holding a squirt gun on her hand. Since UNICEF is a well-reputed organization, its name appeals to the ethos of people immediately.
Let’s look more closely into the photo.
A girl, who is covering her body with fabric, is holding a squirt gun. Moreover, we can see that her face is hopeless, reckless, and desperate. By setting the theme in this way, UNICEF is trying to appeal to the pathos of people. As I have mentioned earlier, the rate of children dying from drinking bad water is higher than the rate of children dying in war.
By holding a squirt gun, a girl is appealing to the logos of people by challenging us to think the significance of the death of children drinking water. We generally assume that a war could be more dangerous circumstance for children than a lack of clean water while the reality tells the opposite.
This advertisement is a part of Tap-Water Project that has been promoted by UNICEF for a while. In this project, UNICEF targeted mainly the U.S. citizens as its audience who are relatively wealthier than most of other countries in our global society.
Though I was confused for a second when I first looked at this advertisement, I soon realized how well this advertisement conveys a powerful message to us.
I provided a video clip for Tap-Water Project below! Enjoy!
I really like that you chose a topic that is so important because water is an necessity to life. By elaborting on UNICEF's comparison of bacteria filled water to guns is definitely powerful and often times overlooked because of how unseemingly different the two are. However, you made it easy for readers to understand their marketing strategy by pointing out the ethos, pathos and logos hidden within the advertisement.
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