Do the Ends Justify the Means? Not According to Donors: An Analysis of Manipulation in Charitable Marketing

Ashley N. Shaw ()
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Ashley N. Shaw: Georgia State University

Chapter Chapter 7 in Rethinking Advertising, 2025, pp 115-133 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In 2016, the National Health Services (NHS) Blood and Transplant in England decided they needed to do something different to get citizens to donate more blood, so they kicked off an innovative augmented reality marketing plan unlike anything they had done before: They created a billboard with an image of a child who appeared to have a potentially fatal condition and an empty blood bag. The NHS then hit the streets around the sign to loan passersby an iPhone and a sticker of a needle that was capable of augmented reality technology (Hobbs in NHS launches first ever augmented reality billboard campaign to show power of blood donations – marketing week. Marketing Week. May 18, 2016, 2016. https://www.marketingweek.com/nhs-launches-first-ever-augmented-reality-billboard-campaign-to-show-power-of-blood-donations/ .). The viewers placed the sticker on their arm and watched as a needle on the iPhone appeared to draw blood from the image. Across the street, the empty blood bag in the billboard would fill, and, the more the bag filled, the healthier the child on the billboard would appear to become. Emboldened by the way that such an easy act could have such a huge difference in the life of an innocent child, the participants were often happy to take the next step and offer a real donation. The organization set records in blood donations that year.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-86536-7_7

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