Comments on: The Girl Effect

By: Judy Warner

Judy Warner — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:34:20 +0000

This is not an attractive video to those of us bothered by the strobe effect. Flashing black and white dots feel bad to me on a physiological level. I would have just closed the video but I wanted to see it because of your email so I had to keep covering it with my hand.

And maybe I’m too old and linear-minded, but I hate those collections of words jumbled together, with their implication that there is some relationship between them that is never defined. It’s the same kind of appeal as a picture of a child running through a field in a political ad: very nice, but so what?

Judy K. Warner

By: Greg Wallace

Greg Wallace — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:32:00 +0000

Roger…

Cynical old one that I am, I think they put more effort into creating the video than they did giving people the opportunity to participate. And yes, I know people need a reason, but it’s not as though the reasons aren’t there to begin with.

Hugely creative effort, as far as vids go, but from a funding standpoint, I’m underwhelmed. Like you, though, I’m curious as to the final word on this. I could be way off base.

Greg Wallace

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:55:20 +0000

Where’s the call to action?

By: Bob Roth

Bob Roth — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:21:01 +0000

The beauty of the idea is that it tells a story. Story telling activates the emotional brain and that is where we want giving to come from. The analytical brain always reverts to the check book, which is bad for giving.

I think that the layout of the story should have been altered. It gave me the task and then the mission. It should have given me the mission and then my task. It lost me when it went from small scale to large scale… it reactivated the thought that the problem is much bigger than anything I can do to help.

Boiling things down to a scale that we can get our head around is a wonderful way to make us feel like we have influence — like we can make an impact. We don’t say that we need to raise money for 100,000 mosquito nets. We ask you to imagine a football stadium with a 100,000 seats and the number of seats you buy for the big game equals the number of people that you save from a life-threatening disease. Oh, I get it… I’ll take 4 seats. Emotional, scaleable, personal give.

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:55:36 +0000

I like the concept and the music was perfect. I found the “imagine the girl” intro part a bit…weird. Where the problems besetting this hypothetical girl were flies, a baby, a husband, hunger, and HIV (all apparently equally bad). And removing these five things is the beginning of the turnaround.

By: Joan Smyth

Joan Smyth — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:30:39 +0000

I agree Roger – it’s a great animation which I just forwarded to my sisters and my Mom. But I don’t see an easy way to give at the end of the show. And if we want to raise money, we certainly have to make it easy. I’d love to combine Dennis’ animators (and budget) with some talented DM fundraisers!

By: mbellotti

mbellotti — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:23:52 +0000

Love the animation, but I’m not sure people will respond to a “method” of making the world a better place that is clearly over simplified. That whole bit about the girl becoming a successful business woman and the village men respecting her and inviting her to the village council for example… how much work did it take in our own society to come even close to that?