Bartle Bogle Hegarty

BBH London for St. John's Ambulance company.

St. John's Ambulance is a company that provides first aid services at events and also teaches first aid. These ads were part of a campaign that included "hard-hitting press, posters, and an iPhone app" to spread the message that knowing first aid can make the difference in a life or death situation. This creative work was based off of the statistical insight that it can take up to eight minutes for an ambulance to reach the scene of an accident; this wouldn't be such a terrible or shocking revelation except that BBH also discovered that 25% of people said that they would "helplessly do nothing while a life is on the line." This one bit of insight reveals a huge amount of detail into just how helpless and unprepared most people feel in the midst of an emergency, and oftentimes, these emergency situations can be muted or even resolved as long as someone knows how to do first aid. First aid information is teachable and readily available, yet many people are completely unfamiliar and unversed in the steps they should take to save a life using procedures like CPR or the Heimlich. St. John's wanted to raise awareness among the general public of the United Kingdom to inform people that people die needlessly because they needed first aid and didn't get the treatment, and also that knowing first aid can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved.

The stark photography really sends an image of death in these print ads, which was the goal for this campaign; however, the images are almost too real and too morbid for a company whose message is fifty percent about the risk of death from not knowing first aid, but also fifty percent about how their services can save a life. The copy on these ads is impossible to read, but each ad includes a narrative about how the person in the ad died from a common scenario that could have been easily avoided, had someone only known first aid.

The narrative of the ad with the young girl's picture reads, "A grape stuck in my throat. I couldn't breathe. It was really scary. But I knew a grown-up would help me. Who was clever at first aid. Who knew that all I needed was some hard slaps on the back. Because all grown-ups know what to do. Don't they?"

The wording is simple, but when paired with the visuals, the ads take on an eerie tone. These are certainly shocking enough to catch someone's attention, and perhaps give some thought to first aid classes, but I can't get over how dead looking the photos are (a little Andre Serano-esque...not a good move). I think the ads are hovering on a dangerous line between scare tactics, intended to scare people into taking action, and shock value, just meant to shock for the sake of being shocking ad work. Pushing the boundaries seems to be a European sensibility in advertising, as well as culture. So, perhaps this campaign was not received with any shock or surprise in the U.K., but I don't think it would run in America.