ISSN: 1550-7521
ISSN: 1550-7521
Journalism and Mass Communication Department, Adjunct Faculty, American University in Cairo, AUC Avenue 11835, Egypt
Received Date: Jan 16, 2019; Accepted Date: Feb 07, 2019; Published Date: Feb 15, 2019
Citation: Elshahed H. NGO and Media Appeals Usage in Egypt: Ramadan as a Case Study. Global Media Journal 2019, 17:32.
Copyright: © 2019 Elshahed H. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Civil society organizations are found in various forms and scale. They devote effort and resources to wide range of causes. One vital form of civil society organization is nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Like various civil sector entities, NGOs operate within a rigid financial environment. The non-profit organization-donor relationship is crucial to a sustainable performance of the non-profit sector. Literature review suggested that people have an internal reward for virtuous behavior acting as an internal rewards mechanism. Building upon such hypothesis, NGO needs to utilize all possible donations techniques for survival. Given the mass media's vital role in advocating any development program and shaping public opinion, media appeals are broadcasted via a medium with substantial magnitude of audience and viewership. This study used content analysis to assess media appeals-mainly focusing on fear and empathy - shown during commercial breaks among three top ranked Egyptian satellite networks, with highest ranking during primetime viewership.
NGO; Media appeal; Empathy; Ramadan; Prime-time viewership; Charity
Civil society - occasionally denoted as the third sector - is used to refer to the activities covered and possibly even beyond the spectrum of the public sector [1]. Civil society organizations are found in various forms, they devote effort and attention to wide range of causes. One vital form of civil society organization is non-governmental organizations “NGOs”. NGOs are commonly defined as “private, not profit oriented types of organizations, which entire purpose is to attend to specific societal interests through advocacy and/or operating some efforts related to social, political. Such efforts may have economic objectives such as: impartiality, education, environmental safety and human rights” [1]. Taking into consideration NGOs’ wide spectrum of activities, their focal purpose remains to attempt to enhance social or political circumstances, and alleviate existing problems created by the inadequate regime [2].
NGOs exist as two main categories: First category is “Operational NGOs”, whose main goal is to tackle and execute projects related to the development of an assigned region. Second Category is “Advocacy NGOs,” which aims to endorse a particular cause. In 2001, Brown and Moore added another category: “Capacity-building NGOs”, which indicate large global organizations' assistance to smaller local NGOs. On a global level, the NGO sector has witnessed significant growth in the last few decades. In 1993 there were 50,000 worldwide; in 2001, the estimated size of the “Non-Governmental or Non- Firm” segment stood an average of 1.4 million organizations, making approximately $680 billion as revenues and an estimated number of 11.7 million as registered personnel. With more than $1 Trillion turnover, a UN report asserted that the universal non-profit sector could come as the world’s eighth largest economy [3].
Although significant research has evaluated the nature of civil society and its proposed impact in Latin America and Eastern Europe, similar analog unraveling the Middle East is needed [4]. Elbayyar reflected upon the notion that the Middle-East is not monolithic; postulating that discrepancy can be found between a country like Saudi Arabia, which prohibits roughly all types of private association; and a country such as Egypt with a vibrant civil sector. Civil society groups in Middle- East region are mostly subject to regime’s supervision or interference.
A structured effort in community service and social aid has a long legacy in Egyptian history. NGOs have always been a key player in supplementing local service deficiency and promoting positive amendment within modern society [5]. Egypt has nearly 41,000 registered NGOs [6]. The beginning of social welfare efforts began in 1936, with the creation of the Higher Board for Social Reform. In 1939, Ministry of Social Solidarity was established with main concern to alleviate the existing disorders of the country’s peasantry areas, aspiring for a holistic reform of Egypt subsequently [7]. The Ministry of Social Solidarity registers and licenses NGOs and monitors their budgets and activities as stipulated by the quite restrictive regulation represented through the Community Associations and Foundations Law 84 of 2002, which superseded Law 32 of 1964 [8].
In 1878, the first Egyptian NGO with Islamic charitable orientation was established. By 1990s, NGOs with Islamic orientation accounted for 35% of the collective NGO sector in Egypt [5]. Examples of Islamic based NGOs include Al-Gam’iya al-Shar’iya founded in 1912, with more than 880 branches across the country. There are also modern - youth-led NGOs - which focus on diminishing social and educational inequalities and empowering marginalized members of the society. One of the most prominent examples of youth-led NGOs is: Resala which started as a student movement by an engineering professor in Cairo University in Egypt. Founded in 1999, Resala now includes more than 100,000 volunteers, and over 4,500 personnel in 60 branches across Egypt. According to Asmaa Karrar PR Assistant Manager in Resala Charity: “Resala’s main purpose is to sustain a group of constant donors and volunteers to consolidate charity and social development occurrences.” Likewise, Life Makers Associations founded by the religious influencer: Amr Khaled, as an initiative to link charity work with social context as a mean for possible national development [5]. Another mean of categorizing NGO’s is via general purpose orientations, La Towsky in 1997 divided the Egyptian NGOs sector into following categories:
• Religious (muslim and christian): Welfare Associations: distinguished by their religious context and orientation. Muslim and Christian compassionate associations make the largest cluster of Egyptian NGOs.
• Community development associations (CDAs): comes as the second largest cluster of Egyptian NGOs sector. CDAs pursue development aimed at the local community. There are almost 3,100 registered CDAs in Egypt, mainly found in rural sections, in addition to several low-income urban environs.
• Private member associations and public cultural associations: represents category of NGOs overwhelmingly located in Greater Cairo, Giza and Alexandria. Currently, there are (14) readily identifiable private member associations.
• Non-religious social welfare associations: they represent secular NGOs that provide social assistance to the community at large, or an identified entity (e.g. the elderly).
• This category also includes national NGOs with bonds to authority/government like the Red Crescent Society, or the Productive Families Association.
In 2003, the Human Rights Watch’s Egypt Report asserted that the NGOs sector in Egypt experiences obstacles escalating from their legal standing alongside matters of accountability, funding and donor connections; which are prone to complication caused by the political environment [9]. NGOs that demand funding from NGOs within Egypt or foreign bases, are obligated to apply for the ministry's consent [10]. Based on “Egypt Human Development Report” for 2003, numerous NGOs are organizationally fragile in structure and financial support alongside government interference. Capitalizing on such notion, the Egyptian based NGOs sector is functioning in a hazardous financial environment. Ibrahim et.al in a 2003 study proclaimed that “Egyptian NGOs are genuinely suffering from a lack of continuity, both in financial funding efforts and donors’ commitment” [10].
The non-profit organization-donor relationship is crucial to a sustainable performance of the non-profit sector. Due to cuts in government funding and global financial crisis, Venable et al. [11] noted that current marketing strategy has become a crucial mean needed for the survival of the non-profit sector. One of the commonly used marketing techniques is usage of media appeals broadcasted via a medium with substantial magnitude of audience and viewership. This study will conduct a content analysis to examine media appeals conveyed through Egyptian television to assess messages and entreaties used by non-profit organizations to enhance helping behavior (donation) across target audience.
Building on a wide range of theoretical framework derivate from literatures on appraisal theories of emotion, helping, and persuasion; studies have affirmed the significance of emotions and how they constitute a vital function in charitable appeals. The traditional classification of emotions is either positive or negative [12], yet, most of the literature dealt with negative emotions usage. Bagozzi and Moore in 1994, focused on how emotions generated by media appeals facilitated helping behavior. They found that a group of four negative emotions (anger, sadness, fear, and tension) increased helping behavior due to their threatening nature. Various studies have debated how negative emotions (guilt and empathy) could be used for enhancing the persuasiveness of charitable solicitations.
Research revealed that persuasion by strengthening approach forces towards an action can be enhanced by an appropriate emotion [12]. Appraisal theories adopted by scholars like Smith and Ellsworth 1985, and Lazarus 1991, claim that emotions occur as “motivational reactions to the appraisals of a given environmental stimuli” [13]. Emotions lead to tendencies to behave in a manner deemed suitable to cope with the stimuli [12]. Building on such notion, Knowles and Linn [14] introduced "The approach-avoidance model of persuasion" which suggests that NGO could enhance the effectiveness of their efforts by triggering a mean to elevate the desire and motivation to help, and minimize resistance to help.
Patil study [12] showed that empathy and guilt are capable of generating more level of donations; they do so because the effectiveness of these emotions is dependent on a potential donor’s connection with the charity. Patil's study enhances the understanding of how negative emotions can be utilized for persuasion. Apart from negative emotions, Smith et al. [15] asserted that positive emotion of empathic contentment has also been vital in establishing assisting relationships. That is an empathic person is expected to show a positive indicator towards helping behavior, when they anticipate that the plight will be alleviated and they might experience joy in reward for their action.
Consumer donor behavior
The desire to help others is a naturally occurring trait of human behavior. Mazar and Ariely [16] suggest that people have an internal reward for virtuous behavior acting as an internal rewards mechanism. Helping behaviors are integral to non-profit organizations operation technicality. Hibbert and Horne argued that “donor behavior research needs to go beyond reasons ‘why’ people donate and interpret more to the mechanism of donation process it-self. Adding to the prominence of researches studying people’s motivations for charity donation, Hibbert and Horne’s research shed light to the fact that the circumstances surrounding a donation process are vital. Such assumption demands and compels organizations to persistently preserve and appeal to donors as cited earlier [17].
Motives for helping behavior have been classified as egoistic and altruistic [18]. Where egoistic motives are geared towards enhancing the welfare of self by seeking rewards or reducing grief; an altruistic motive, in contrast, has the welfare of the needy as the central goal. In charity terms, aids to the helper either as satisfaction or contentment, are unintended consequences of the act of helping/donating [12]. Moreover, Kang et al. [19] employed a model of giving behavior, that represents donors as having a mixture of both altruistic and egoistic motivations. This process of philanthropy has been referred by Andreoni [20] as “warm-glow” giving. Kang et al. [19] proposed a model to study the influence of communication content and timing on individuals’ tendencies to act altruistically. Their model relates to aspect of appeal such as the visual portrayal of the need. They exhibited that appeals with altruistic nature are more likely to be useful during early stages of a given donation campaign, confirming the significance of timing and appeals’ nature to any donation campaign management.
Due to charitable organizations’ heavy reliance on individual donors, it is imperative to investigate the individual’s donor behavior. According to Tinkelman, there are four major types of donors: individuals, legacies, foundations, and corporations, adding that most donations come from individuals [21]. Bekker and Wiepking [22] identified and structured eight key mechanisms behind charitable behavior. The eight mechanisms are as follows:
• Mindfulness of necessity,
• Solicitation,
• Costs and benefits,
• Selflessness, status/reputation,
• Psychological gains,
• Values, and finally
• Efficacy.
Bekkers and Wiepking examined possible accompanied psychological benefit as one motivation to give to a charity with two main mechanisms presented in below form:
• Joy of giving and
• Self-image.
Literature also found arousal to be associated to immediate behavioral inclinations, enhanced by emotional responses and tendency to donate [19].
NGO use of media communications
In June 2013, The World Bank’s findings offered some explanation to why some recent setbacks might have taken place within the Egyptian charity sector. “Egypt’s financial deficit and gross public debt, grown to nearly 100 percent of gross domestic product” [2]. According to the Ministry of Social solidarity, given the country’s deficit, charity organizations suffered the worst aftermath. Since NGOs face constant demands for resources and are largely funded by public subscription, they are obligated to seek a high media profile. With such kind of donor-based orientations, NGOs must meet the pre-set target of donors or they might face the loss of their funding budget [23]. This is possible by either making their messages more persuasive or by reducing resistance to their persuasion attempts. As a mean to accomplish appropriate funding goals, NGOs need to utilize media appeals to reach donation.
Given the mass media's important role in advocating any development program and shaping public opinion, NGOs depend on media to propagate their messages (Sharma, 2010). Mass media are channels, such as magazines, television or radio, used to convey information to large number of people. Media are one of the most imperative associates to the NGO community. Granted that a noteworthy percentage of the Egyptian population is illiterate, and newspaper costs more than what an average Egyptian citizen might tolerate, the mass majority of Egyptians are reached via TV and radio channels specifically through the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) (Center for Media Freedom, 1998). Religious holidays are a high season for donations, affirmed Karrar. During the Month of Ramadan, Egyptian TV channels broadcast numerous advertisements calling for people to donate for a variety of charity projects [2]. Like Ramadan month in the Arab and Specifically Muslim nations, Christmas time is a wide attractor for NGO campaigns.
A successful advertisement must perform multiple tasks in order to fulfill its prime function: persuade the consumer. Traditionally, researchers have followed a paradigm of persuasion viewing the consumer as an active processor of rational information, leading to the dominance of rational appeals in advertising. Later on, a new paradigm of persuasion evolved, which contends that consumers establish preferences for both rational and emotional reasons. In order to motivate audiences, media must develop messages with several components, including: 1. Issue relevance to the target audience; 2. Action required from audiences 3. Expected benefit to arise from action? 4. Finally, plan your activities ("How to Develop a Communication Strategy to your NGO").
Social media exploitation
Ullah et al. [24] argue that traditional fundraising methods are outdated given the evolution of internet marketing tools and social media (p.74). With the advent of Internet and in particular social media, the entire mechanism of donation collection process has been altered. The novel know-how offered by the advent technology had an impact on the means through which people show their support, offering a wide range of methods to donate. As of June 2012, there were estimated to be over 2.4 billion Internet users in the world [25], with a large portion labeled as social media users.
Social media also commonly referred to as (Web 2.0) technologies is a fusion of sociology and technology, where audiences get to be more active and responsive in communication messages. Recently, NGOs have utilized social media to gain easy access and low-cost channel to reach infinite number of people and subsequently, potential number of donors [24]. In 2013, according to Network for Good, most charitable online donations through the platform is made through charity websites (61%), followed by peer-to-peer giving (e.g., Facebook) (18%), and giving portals (12%). To facilitate online donations, a number of charity organizations have spent considerable effort on their websites by improving navigability for information search, personalizing communication with donors, and providing various features and information [26].
Social media has altered businesses and organizations’ means of introduction to their public, they are reducing barriers and allowing more people to links in an online world either for social or business benefits. According to Seo et al. study [27] tackling the online fundraising trend, they established that 70% out of total (75) participating NGOs have reported changing their strategies related to the usage of traditional means of communication with developing new media modes [27].
In September 2010, for example, the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging opened a new website that provides profiles of the children supported and allows donors to choose recipients. The personalized website improved the charity’s online fundraising such that the average online donations went up about 10 percent, and total online funds increased 15.7 percent over the year [26]. Another example is Globalgiving, which is a non-profit that connects donors with grassroots projects. On their website, one can find a myriad of projects to support, an equivalent project is found in Egypt under the name of like khierguide, which aims at mediating the roads among potential donors and those in need help either individual entities or charitable organization.
Ahmad Ali Kheir founder of Khierguide, illustrated that countless Egyptian NGO are in desperate need for help/ donations, yet they do not have enough fund to reach out through media, nor they have the know-how. "It is not fair that those – referring to large NGOs with solid funding-receive all donations, while many others with valid purposes are out of resources" inequality was the main reason behind Kheirguide invention. These platforms are helping ease the donation process, provide donors with a large number of options to support, and make it easier for donors to build up a portfolio that fits with their distinctive needs [28].
Usage of emotional appeals in TV advertisement
The impact of television (TV) advertising and its proposed effect on society has long been debated since the introduction of TV advertising in 1940s. Marshal McLuhan argue "that television does not appear to be communication as we have known it", and that the medium creates a state associated with relaxation and passive learning. Grass and Wallace [29] argued that TV is a Low-involvement activity demonstrating that television advertisements are almost twice as effective at conveying information as print advertisements under low involvement conditions. "The significance of visual images used in fundraising pleas is disclosed by their proportionate excessive usage rate" [30]. Several studies have suggested that roughly all fundraising appeals used by NGOs showed imagery with ‘negative’ context characterized by passive, or ‘victim’ depictions [30]. In 1989, the General Assembly of European NGOs offered its widely neglected Code of Conduct related to visual messages dealing with Third World media systems.
Emotional appeal is considered one of the most effective persuasion strategies used by television adverts. This appeal commune emotion by vocally recitation the plight of the advert’s main characters or visually present their grief, or using a combination of both. Reich's study [31] studied viewer’s responses corresponding to both emotional and nonemotional TV advertisements. Reich compared the effects of verbally presented emotional content versus visually presented emotional content, all within the context of a lowinvolvement medium offered via television viewing. Results showed that emotional appeals have the tendency of being most effective at inducing physiological stimulation, enriching memory, and creating additional positive attitudes – a condition which other research study has linked to enhanced the motivation to purchase the proposed product, which in this case translates to donation or evoke helping behavior [31].
Existing models of visual communication suggest that moving images engage three mechanisms to persuade:
• Visual association,
• Visual incongruity, and
• Visual symbolism.
Advertisements present the viewer with emotional experience, facial expressions and personal situations that trigger emotional responses. Some researchers believe that emotionally laden images induce intensity in which viewers unconsciously internalize the emotional scene, creating physiological arousal in response [31].
Although some advertisements will utilize a blend of both rational and emotional elements; commonly, advertisements present emotional content through a combination of the verbal and nonverbal components. Verbal material includes words displayed on the screen and/or the dialogue of the characters/narrator. Nonverbal material consists of the visual and musical content of the advertisement [32]. It is implied that people’s attitudes and behavioral intents are predisposed not confined to the enduring advertising appeals, yet people’s level of engagement with the proposed issue and content of the advert comes into consideration. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) suggests that individuals have the tendency to ponder more when exposed to relevant cues [33].
Fear appeals have been linked to the production of stress and anxiety, both are conditions that common individuals pursue to minimize, if not eliminate [34]. TV Advertisements may communicate fear to viewers by representing an unfamiliar atmosphere, or through displaying a situation prone to evoke a sense of vulnerability within the corresponding audiences [35]. Appeals for donations to charity can use a similar strategy, where the desire to eliminate negative feelings can also induce helping [36]. Karrar depicts that negative appeals are the most successful techniques to attract donors' attention and subsequently, their contribution to the fundraising campaign. She believes that when people fear the situation portrayed they try avoiding it via donating. "People will not pay money unless they are afraid or feel pain/ sympathy".
As previously mentioned, Month of Ramadan is considered high season for NGO to convey their appeals through media with focus on television. In order to measure frequency of appeals used and messages broadcasted by NGO, this study used content analysis to assess media appeals-mainly focusing on fear and empathy-shown during commercial breaks among three top ranked Egyptian satellite networks which had the highest ranking during primetime viewership: MBC Masr, AlHayat1 and AlNahar. According to an IPSOS report that was release on the third day of Ramadan, prime time scored two time periods first scored right after Maghreb prayer (7:00-8:00 pm) and second highest primetime viewership happened after last Muslim prayer that is from (11:00 pm-1:00 am) to maintain balance two time slots (30 minutes each for each channel) have been chosen from the first period and another 30 minutes for the second period.
Variables and coding sheet
Coding sheet (Appendix) measured eleven variables: TV Network, textual demonstration, verbal demonstration, nonverbal demonstration, existence/absence of Fear appeal, existence/absence of sympathy appeal, existence/absence of emotional return to donor, also duration of Advertisement where: short length counts for 30 second or less, average length from 30-60 seconds, and long length counts for more than 60 second/one minute in length, which organization (NGO) have advocated the advertisement, objective behind the ad either by financial donation, blood donation, materialistic items donation and volunteering and taking place in organization activities, finally the usage of celebrity figures as an incentive to participate/donate in the advocated campaign. Content analysis process used composite week technique to assure representation of all days within the sample, starting Saturday 27.6.2015 ending in Friday 3.7.2015 with exception to Monday that was covered the following week representing 6.7.2015.
Following section reflects on general notes regarding advertisements presented during week duration of Ramadan, as well as discussing each variable measured with briefing statistics. Coding sheet yielded total of 102 advertisements with average of 10 ads per day and 3 ads per each time slot. As opposed to expectation of having higher advertising materials on weekends, highest ads frequency was presented on Wednesday 1.7.2015. Saturday 27.6 recorded 10 ads, Sunday 28.6 recorded 9 ads, Tuesday 30.6 (10) ads, Thursday 2.7 (20) ads, Friday 3.7 (14) ads, and Monday 6.7 (17) ads. Generally, all ads broadcasted has sentimental theme usage in common, mostly requiring financial donation, while others advocating volunteer participation. Usage of Fear and Sympathy appeals subjugated the themes of all campaigns except for Food Bank campaign which used musical performances of celebrities to attract more volunteers and advocated organizational efforts and projects. Majority of Ads recorded had financial donations as the main objective of the campaign. As for the coding sheet variables:
TV network
MBC Masr has the highest viewership rates of all channels during 7-8 pm, first time slot was assigned accordingly from 7:00 to 7:30 which corresponded with an Egyptian prank show. Only 18 ads were aired through MBC Masr deviating from being the top ranked channels and program viewership rates presented by IPSOS. AlHayat Egyptian Satellite channel broadcasted the highest number of ads recording 59 ads within the time slot of 7:30-8:00 corresponding with an Egyptian comedy series. While AlNahar Channel, also an Egyptian Satellite channel recorded average number of 25 corresponding with an Egyptian drama series.
Textual content
Usage of textual message during advertisement is a commonly used technique, yet it is not as sentimental or effective in affecting attitude as using images and case portrayed when it comes to charity reflection. Only (6) ads out of (102) denoted usage of textual content in their ads, nevertheless, music and images projection were always accompanied in the ads with textual content presence. Mostly textual content portrayed was narrated by celebrities -for example, Shefa Elurman Hospital used two prominent celebrities to present the designated ad-as an addition element to evoke emotions and advocate donations.
Verbal content
Verbal messages within charitable context could be conveyed through a narrator, needy (projection of a donation case) and finally a celebrity as a mean of endorsing the case and ultimately the organization. Exactly half of total ads (51) projected usage of textual content through a narrator. Whereas other half used celebrities either through direct narration or through musical performance as the case with Food Bank Campaign which gathered different "young" celebrities through a musical performance that encouraged volunteers to join the organization and also informed audience with various organization's activities and projects. None of the ads coded contained verbal content carried through a needy.
Non-verbal content
Non-verbal content meant the usage of music and/or images, none of the ads in focus used music and/or images and lacked verbal (narration/commenting) content.
Ads reflected images, lacking any musical basis. (20) Ads contained musical element with absence of any images relating to needy/suffering of human elements.
While (43) Ads contained both Musical and Images features always accompanied by verbal components.
Fear
As previously mentioned emotional appeals mainly fear and sympathy are the on the most used appeals in relation to any donation movement. Likewise, fear and sympathy were the only two appeals used in almost all ads recorded. Fear to have a direct relation to disease or standing in needy's circumstances may provoke attitude to contribute to the case or project in focus. Despite literature ratification on wide usage of fear appeal only (16) Ads reported using it. Fear appeal was used at a mild level in several Ads, nevertheless, was vividly used and used as the slogan focal point of "Maa'n" organization which aims to decrease and reconstruct slums areas in Egypt using slogan: "We are all in one boat."
Sympathy
Similarly, sympathy appeal was used in greatest number of Ads as it is the easiest to provoke with usage of images and/or music. Nonetheless, sympathy appeal was recorded (48) times. Remaining Ads used musical performances with no negative sentiment content. Others narrated statistical facts surrounding specific disease/circumstances or covered previous successful achievement to encourage future participation.
Emotional return
By emotional return organization encourage and reassure donors' participation within their campaign/project. Islam as a religion require Muslims to dedicate an exact portion of their assets mainly money named "Zakah" to poor and needy individuals besides a social and religious good deeds to devote money whenever possible to persons in need. Numerous organizations emphasized on Muslims' portion of Zakah and used religious figures to legitimize that their designated NGO is appropriate for such Zakah donation. Apart from religious affiliation other NGOs used philanthropic drives with focus on humanitarian ego and self-actualization. For example: one of Magdy Yacoub Heart Foundation Campaign used an Egyptian actress who claimed that she was certain of Egyptians participation in saving children's hearts because they (Egyptians) have kind/big hearts. While another version of the campaign used religious figures and Mufti from various Arab countries pressing the religious reimbursement that occurs succeeding a given donation act. Out of the total (102) Ads, only (25) used emotional return factor.
Time duration
Several NGOs had different lengths segments showing on various time slots to diversify audiences and Ad composition. Only 15 Ads counted as shortly timed counting for 30 second or less, 42 had average length from 30-60 seconds, and 45 were long in time duration counting for more than a minute in length.
Organization
Ramadan Advertising race witnessed organizations all aiming to convince and attract as much donation as possible. Ranked by the highest number of Ads broadcasted: Masr elkhier Foundation broadcasted (16) Ads, Magdy Yacoub Heart Foundation broadcasted (14) Ads, Resala Charity Association broadcasted (11) Ads, 500500 Hospital for Cancer treatment used (10) Ads, Food Bank broadcasted (7) Ads that were dominated by a musical performance theme, National Cancer institute (6) Ads, Egypt Zakat House Broadcasted (5) Ads, Maa'n Foundation (5) Ads, Shefa ElUrman Hospital broadcasted (4) Ads, Children's Cancer Hospital 57357 broadcasted (4) Ads, Baheya Hospital (4) Ads, Principle Society for Cooperation between Quran and Sunnah Scholars (4) Ads, The Egyptian Liver Research Institute and Hospital (3) Ads, Bank ElShefaa ElMasry only (2) Ads, Wahed mn Alnas Charity Foundation (2) Ads, Urman Association (2) Ads, Cairo Kidney Center (2) Ads, and finally Hospital of Burn Injuries only one Ad.
AD objective
All Advertisements broadcasted during month of Ramadan targeted financial donation purposes. Except for Resala Charity Association which called for volunteer participation through celebrity resemblance and visits to their branches and headquarters and Food Bank Campaign which focused more on educating audience with ongoing or previous projects of the organization and expected outcome of their donation/ participation, though no clear quest for financial donations was raised in their campaign.
Celebrity endorsement
Using celebrities may improve ad recall and effectiveness, some ads only used a renowned voice of a celebrity along with images and music. More than half (62) used celebrity endorsement either religious figures or entertainment icons.
This study offered a descriptive examination of the available data. No specific pattern was examined to check availability and usage of appeals used in prime-time viewership beyond Ramadan season, which is an exceptional case for advertisements in general and NGO related advertisement in particular, due to its religious connotation. Further examination need to be executed longitudinally to manage differences among high season periods like Ramadan and verse. Also observed trends and appeals used have not been analyzed in accordance to their effectiveness with relation to consumer behavior and attitude motivation. That is appeals used have not been examined to actually induce donor behavior among targeted audience.
Research showed that emotional appeals remain focal attitude motivator for donation/helping behavior. With accordance to existing literature of media appeals used by NGO worldwide, fear and sympathy were the only two appeals used during month of Ramadan. Sympathy was used 48 times, while fear appeal was used 16 times. Generally speaking, renowned NGO with famous iconic figures had hegemony over the scene; advertisements broadcasted were dominated by four prominent NGO: Magdy Yacoub Heart Foundation, Masr elkhier Charity Foundation broadcasted, Cancer hospital 57357, and finally to be inaugurated shortly, 500500 hospitals for cancer.
Smaller NGOs were absent from the advertisement race, only those with significance financed body for example Magdy Yacoub Heart Foundation and Masr elkhier foundation broadcasted several advertisements with various themes and time duration. Smaller NGOs with limited budget were absent from the race. This study examined the content presented in media yet no examination was executed to examine the effect of such appeals on consumer's helping behavior and effectiveness of each appeal as opposed to other factors used in campaign design like celebrity endorsement and images projection.
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