Analysis: The Salvation Army Campaign

In February of 2015, this particular dress was a global trend on social media. With the picture of the dress also came the question “What color is this - white and gold or black and blue?” Worldwide people were responding with different answers and were unable to come to a solid conclusion. This dress was seen as an illusion, and controversy struck everywhere. In this advertisement presented by The Salvation Army, they took the dress controversy and applied it to the very serious issue of domestic abuse against women. The Salvation Army is an international movement based on the Christianity and charity, whose mission is to feed, clothe, comfort, and care for those who are in need. Carehaven, one of the Salvation Army projects, is a shelter

They do this by taking this globally familiar trend and applying it to a much darker global trend - that being domestic violence. When you first look at this advertisement, there are two main things that catch your attention: 1) The well-dressed girl who has also been beaten and 2) The larger text “Why is it so hard to see black and blue.” The background is dark, setting a dark and desolate tone. To help draw attention to the text on the advertisement, they used white to contrast the background. This advertisement displays a beautiful woman in a nice dress who has clearly been abused. Her lip is busted, knees are scraped, and her eye is black. The text beside her reads “Why is it so hard to see black and blue” followed by “One in six women are victims of abuse. That’s no illusion.” The color of the dress the woman has on happens to be white and gold - her bruises and scrapes from being beaten are black and blue. The illusion stems farther than just the dress. Most women who are in violent households go unnoticed and unheard. When the advertisement mentions the statistic that one in six women are victims of abuse, it doesn’t mention that these women are generally hard to distinguish from others. A woman wearing longsleeves and jeans could be hiding signs of abuse

The symbol here is a woman in a dress being domestically abused - however, women are not the only victims. Men can be victims of domestic violence just as easily. Not to mention that Salvation Army’s Carehaven program in South Africa is a refuge for women only and their children only. Also, the Salvation Army is a Christian based charity, so why couldn’t they use something more religion based rather than resulting to a social media trend to raise awareness on this issue? Why do they have to spread awareness of domestic violence by making people feel guilty? In this case, they aren’t trying to sell something, they are trying to call attention to something that happens to people every single day. Of course, this is a very dark topic and issue but there could be other ways to get the point across. Not everyone may be familiar with the dress trend since not all generations are familiar with recent technologies. But when people look at this ad, they want to donate money, they want to get help for people who are victims. That stems from our society’s learned value system, or doxa. People were raised to think good and do good. We are taught right from wrong. In this sense, everyone knows and believes that domestic violence is wrong - except for those who are performing the