Are you a life saver?

This campaign by the NHS is an example of Social Modelling. It has group of different people of different ages, standing in the shape of a heart looking very happy. The audience may be drawn towards the campaign as they are interested, and it seems like the advertisement is talking to them directly, as they use the rhetorical question of "Are you?" in a large print. There are numerous campaigns to encourage people to give blood, but I feel that this poster is effective as the use of having different people that aren't particularly famous and looking very happy makes it seem like giving blood is a thing for everyone, something that everyone can do.

In a study by Bandura and Menlove (1968), they had 32 girls and 16 boys separated into 3 groups. The first group (single model) were all afraid of dogs and were shown a video of a model being increasingly intimate towards the dogs. The second group (multiple model) weren't afraid of dogs, and were also a video of models being increasingly intimate towards the dogs in a non anxious manner. The third group (control group) were controls who did  not watch a video to do with dogs. Those in the first and second condition had reduced levels of fears and more interaction with dogs after watching the video. This suggests that social models are effective in trying to influence change the children's views of the dogs. In relation to the campaign, it suggests that social model is effective in influencing people to donate blood.  In figure 1 (below), it shows that in post test and follow up test, the median approach scores towards the dogs are a lot higher in the multiple model and single model group. This suggests that social modelling has been very effective in changing behaviours, so encouraging people to donate blood through social modelling seems to be useful.

This campaign also uses the technique of guilt sells, as they are making the audience feel bad for not being a life saver, since everyone in the picture are just normal people who have done it. This is an effective ad in general, as it evokes emotions in the audience to feel as if they are responsible, and if other people can donate blood so easily, so can they!

References:
Bandura, A. & Menlove, F. L (1968). Factors determining vicarious extinction of avoidance behaviour through symbolic modelling. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 99-108.