‘Most Shocking Second A Day’ begins with laughter, and ends with tears. The commercial follows a young little girl in London through a whole year full of changes due to political unrest. It starts with her last year’s birthday, then a series of joyful moments which slowly turns to confusion, fear, and then desperation. The commercial was created for Save The Children’s campaign to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of the war in Syria. Throughout those 3 years, millions of Syrian lives had been disturbed, if not already taken away. Families had to leave their home for refugee camps, spending their days hiding from gunshots, searching for food and striving to barely survive. All of these are illustrated in the commercial, using primarily emotional appeal and a familiar video style, to draw the audience’s attention to a topic that deserves more concern as well as to influence people to give donations to the suffering children in Syria.
A primary rhetorical mean is the use of pathos. The commercial narrates a story of a little British girl, living a wonderful, peaceful life and how her life turns into one full of fear as the war breaks out. It was made during the time when the international attention to the conflict in Syria had decreased and the humanitarian crisis in Syria had been ignored. The use of a girl child actor directly evokes compassion from the audience. This targets the worldwide audience who can relate the girl to their own children, hence empathize more with the people in Syria. The commercial sheds light on what was occurring in Syria, puts the audience in the shoes of the suffering children and shows how violence can have a tragic impact on a child’s life. As the conflict starts breaking out, the basic daily necessities are taken away. Electricity is cut off after the scene of blinking lights, her family begins using candles. Drinking water becomes scarce, shown by the girl gulping the last few drops of a water bottle as well as when the sink tap does not work. Medicines seems to be running out as the mother shaking the bottle for the last dose. The activities start to get more intense when the girl was bombarded with grenades, gunshots and tear gas. Afterwards, it was a series of the family running away, searching for food, being separated from each other. All of those are strong use of pathos, inciting deep emotions from the audience. The implicit purpose is to emotionally influence people to give donations to these children. The commercial also uses ethos throughout as it is delivered from a perspective of an insider, a child who suffers from the political turmoil. However, there is very little use of logos. The only logical appeal in the commercial was the message at the end, ‘Just because it is not happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening’. This logically solidifies the claim that this is what the children in Syria are facing, even if the audience may not be aware of it. The producer did not choose to use much logos because the commercial itself is somewhat self-explanatory. In addition, in order to achieve the implicit purpose, to raise donations for the Syrian children, it would be a more effective strategy to emotionally trigger the audience to grow the urge within themselves to voluntarily donate rather than providing logical reasons.
The commercial is created with a familiar video format of ‘Second-a-day’. This draws the audience’s attention to the topic. Throughout the commercial, the frame colors changes from bright and colorful gradually to dark and gloomy. This emphasizes on the sudden change of the little girl’s life. Before this change, there are details signaling this change: the news anchor talking about violent clashes, live ammunition the newspaper with the headline ‘Government declares Martial Law’. When the war occurs, at first, the girl does not seem to be aware of the situation and only the adults are panicking. After her house being under attack, the girl’s emotions switch from cheerful to terrified and eventually to apathetic. By bring in the birthday song again at the end, the advertiser constructs a total contrast in the life of the girl after one year. On the first birthday, she was surrounded by family and friends, with a big birthday cake full of candles; while on the the second, she was alone with a single person and a meager birthday cake. When being asked to make a wish, the girl looks up and stares at the audience. This creates an impact on the audience to contemplate on her wish. In addition, these two scenes are the only ones in the commercial that are longer than one second. This puts emphasis the most important scenes, hence making them even more impactful on the audience. Ending with the message ‘Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening’ creates a strong long-lasting impact on the audience’s mind after watching.
We can also relate the little girl to the audience as they view the commercial. Both start off as unobservant of the political turmoil happening around them, only focused on their happy and peaceful lives. Even at the beginning of the conflict, the little girl did not understand why airplanes were flying above, why her neighbors were frightened and in rush to flee, or why there were ambulances on the road. She only becomes afraid when her house was under attack. Similarly, the world seemed to be neglectful when the crisis first broke out in Syria, people only got concerned after ISIS’ bombings in big cities over the world. As the girl loses her innocence, the audience also lose theirs, realizing that while they are living in their happy worlds, the people in Syria are suffering. After watching the commercial, they are forced to acknowledge the war in Syria. By using this method, the producers hope that the topic of the Syrian War will be brought up more often in public and more people will be aware of the suffering of the people in Syria.
Although there has not been a war fought in America for a very long time, this commercial would be felt deeply by American audience. By using a modern city context, the producers aim to bring the conflict in the commercial close to the viewers’ heart. These viewers are able to relate and sympathize more with the suffering of the little girl when the activities in the commercial are what they, or their children usually do on a daily basis. Some examples are playing flute, riding bicycles, playing soccer. In addition, the surroundings are modern houses, high rise buildings, automobiles which are commonly seen in the America. This allows the people in America, as well as other developed countries, who might be indifferent or uninformed of the suffering of the people in Syria, to be aware of the situation. On the other hand, this may risk losing attention or a lack of understanding of audience in developing countries who cannot relate well in unfamiliar context and settings. This is because the people from these countries are usually living in much worse conditions than what the girl was experiencing at the beginning. However, the Internet there is often not as ubiquitous and it is harder to reach a wide range of audience. Hence, it is more logical to cater the commercial to target audience from well off countries, such as America. Moreover, this works well towards the implicit aim of the producer, to garner donations, which the people in these countries are much more capable of.
The commercial has been brilliantly constructed and successfully achieved its goals. However, if I was given a chance to improve the commercial, there would be a few details I want to add on. The commercial does not show any actual images of the gunmen or casualties. Incorporating some men holding guns or shooting as well as some people with injuries would immensely intensify the settings and hence the emotional appeal on the audience. In addition, the little girl’s sickness was only mentioned once through a scene of her sneezing. It would be effective to include some documents or X-ray scans to further illustrate the sickness that the girl contracted during such a situation. In reality, the Syrian refugees often choose to cross the ocean to another country in search of safety. The commercial could also go on to describe how harsh this journey could be and how they are despised and discriminated in other countries which is another global issue that has been frowned upon.
Millions of people in Syria has been affected in similar ways as illustrated in the commercial. By using a familiar video style with a familiar settings, the producers succeeded to pull a wide range of audience emotionally with 58 millions views on Youtube. This number is certainly accompanied by a large amount of money raised for a disaster which often receives much less donations than natural ones like earthquakes or hurricanes. ‘Most Shocking Second A Day’ begins with laughter, and ends with tears. What we see in a commercial, is what the people in Syria see