'Girl': Is the New MSF Video Good Social Advertising?

Back in August, the humanitarian and international development blogosphere slogged it out over a controversial video from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) UK. The video, titled 'Boy,' featured a stark image of a small, clay house in an unnamed warzone, with audio of a child's pained screams. It never aired. MSF deliberately released the video online to provoke responses. And provoke it did, from overwhelmed sadness, to outrage, to furious accusations of sensationalism and exploitation, to passionate defenses of MSF's endorsement of the video --and, in the case of one blogger roundtable discussion, all of those reactions.

MSF UK's communications team handled the deluge with the skill of a true social media professionals, engaging their critics, and even linking to them.

For my part in the melee, I argued that MSF does emergency medical relief, so it is entirely appropriate for its ads to highlight that. MSF is not CARE, or even the International Rescue Committee. Even outside active conflict zones, MSF employees work with blood and guts and human goo all day, treating badly injured, ill, and malnourished people during what are surely among the most desperate moments of those patients’ lives. On the operating table, no one is empowered. And we're all made of the same breakable stuff.  A campaign featuring nothing but resilient, empowered beneficiaries (such as CARE's widely-praised  “I Am Powerful”) does not make sense in this context, while a disturbing one that shocks the viewer’s conscience does.

Many disagreed. Bill Easterly and Laura Freschi thought the ad played to stereotypes of Africa as a wasteland of civil wars and rape –-even though the setting was never named, and no actors were ever shown.  On Aid Watch, Freschi wrote, "After watching this ad several times (I don’t recommend you try this), I feel 1) deranged and 2) hopeless, as though nothing I could ever do, much less donate a few dollars to MSF, could possibly have any effect on the vast, incomprehensible suffering in the world."

The MSF video debate dominated conversation in the humanitarian corner of blogosphere for a solid week, including here, raising questions about what makes a good (or bad) advocacy or fundraising piece.  Can an advocacy video compel people to take action for a cause they weren't previously involved in, or think about an issue differently? Does suffering open more wallets than hope? Can visual media meaningfully convey realities people in peaceful parts of the world have never experienced? Is it even possible, psychologically, for a London tube commuter to empathize with an IDP in Sri Lanka, or a Manhattan office worker with a Darfuri refugee in Chad?

No consensus was reached on answers. That's a good thing, in my opinion. The value is in the debate itself, which just reignited with the release of MSF's follow-up to 'Boy' -- 'Girl.'

(Trigger warning, obviously.)

On its post about the new ad, social advertising blog Osocio has already received reactions as disparate as:

"This video is revolting, yet I realize that was the point of the creators. But its so jarring, I wanted it stop, immediately. I couldn’t muster the will to get thru the whole video -it was too painful and gross. And since it remains anonymous, there’s no individual for me to self-identify with or feel a sense of commitment for. I recognize the injustice is real, but you lost me - I don’t have the strength to witness that story. My guess is most people aren’t either."

And:

"Yes this is intense, but totally relevant… so many of us, myself included, live in a sanitised media cloud, that never alerts us to the fact these issues are going on every second of every day somewhere in the world. Well done, hope it get plenty of air-time."

What do you think?

11/22/2009: Correction: In my second paragraph I originally wrote that Avril Benoit was head of communications for MSF. She holds that position at MSF Canada, which was not involved in producing the videos, or officially responding to criticisms of them.