Water Aid - 'Sunshine on a Rainy'

The following advert is an appeal from the charity Water Aid who go to some of the world's poorest and most marginalized communities to install wells to provide said communities with water.

Claudia

-Clothing: Skirt, polo shirt and shoes -rather western style look
-Wide shots of the path show how vulnerable she is as a child. The close ups brings the audiences attention solely on her, one person is much easier to identify with rather than a group.

Stuart Hall- Representation

-Deliberately broken away from traditional/stereotypical charity advert (social context) - No depressing narration, no shots of children drinking dirty water, some crops are shown, Claudia does wear decent western clothing etc. The use of lots of close up camera shots makes it direct and personal while also allowing us to recognize this as every day life for her. She also never directly addresses the audience or look at the camera making her seam very lonely while she sings to her self.

-Shared conceptual road map; Typical African landscape with really unsaturated and beige colors, dry plants,

-Binary Opposites:
UK vs Africa -lush dark green Fertile ; Dead, Dusty, Dry crops -Developed; Underdeveloped
Beginning of advert and end -Single child; whole village - More saturation throughout
Sunshine vs Rainy day
Claudia's positive story vs on-screen graphic"650 million people still don't have access to clean drinking water" (conceptual binary)- concept of change

-Audience
The encoded meaning is very blatantly obvious to the audience -these people need water.
The use of covering Zoe's 'Sunshine on a rainy day' creates a target audience of 30s-40s as it has a nostalgic factor to the ad which will attract this age range who are likely to have a stable income compared to that of younger generations. 

David Gauntlett - Theories of identity

The idea that media provides us with 'tools' or resources that we use to construct our identities.

-Claudia acts as a role model for the type of life style changes that the audience could be responsible for creating if they donate to water aid

Liebst Van Zoonen - Feminist theory

-Women - Washing, collecting water, looking after children ]-Reinforced stereotypes

-Men - working in fields/labor

Although the women are in stereotypical female roles, they do physical work by walking to collect water which does subvert stereotypes 

Gilroy - Post Colonial Theories

-Water aid is encouraging it's British audience to 'help' those like Claudia who live in less developed countries

-'Sunshine on a rainy day' is from British culture and the meaning of the song makes sense in British social context, not African. 'Rain on a sunny day' makes more sense in African social context -Imposing of British values on African society doesn't work.
-Previous adverts have cultivated an impossible task with miserable and starving women and children of which audiences have become desensitised to. Water Aid has twisted this idea. 

Audio Codes

dietetic sound on radio - typical British weather

SOUND BRIDGE -crickets from 2nd frame heard in 1st frame -smoother transition - links UK to Africa-money comes from UK which is sent to Africa

Claudia begins humming-intro + crunching of footsteps-dry 

Singing has a contrast in accent to British Radio-childish voice although hard to distinguish age due to the fact she is on her own -suggests maturity 

'Sunshine on a rainy day' -contrast in culture -view of sunshine

"Makes me feel like i belong" -water brings people together?

"Don't leave me here alone" -keep watching 

"Sunshine on a rainy day"-happy children on screen - sunshine=happiness