Innovative Ad Campaign Aims to Stem Budget Cuts for Kids’ Programs

The Children’s Defense Fund has launched an advertising campaign that uses social media to enlist public support in opposing government spending cuts to programs that benefit low-income youth, writes The New York Times.

The “Be Careful What You Cut” effort features photos in which the face of a child is grafted onto the body of a pregnant woman, a tattooed prisoner or a homeless man. The ads warn that spending cuts to early-education, Medicaid and other programs for low-income families could produce higher future costs as more poor children drop out of school, get pregnant or turn to crime.

A campaign Web site urges visitors to use special Facebook and Twitter applications to use their own childhood photos to create new versions of the ads and submit them to local publications.

“We need an emotion-grabber, a punch in the nose to start conversation. Then we need very rational reasons for people to believe that taking care of poor children is not charity, but enlightened self-interest,” said Fred Senn of Fallon Worldwide, the ad agency that developed the campaign.