How to create a public welfare festival for everyone to participate in?
In 2019, primary school students in Cornwall, England, painted their noses red or made their own "red noses" instead of plastic "red noses" that were not environmentally friendly.
Text/Gong Yijie
Is it possible to create a public welfare festival with the participation of all people?
In China, industry insiders are also looking for an answer to this question. In recent years, public welfare brands such as "99 Charity Day" created by Internet giants are working hard to find a fulcrum in social products and new interactive games, trying to leverage more people's daily lives and make charity and the public have a more detailed connection.
But at present, China's charitable donations are still dominated by enterprises. According to the "2019 China Charity Donation Report" released by the China Charity Federation, the amount of individual donations in China in 2019 was 39.845 billion yuan, accounting for 10.54% of the total donations compared with the previous year, but it has not yet reached 30%. How to mobilize more people to participate in public welfare is still an urgent problem to be solved.
In Western countries, individual donations are commonly given more than corporate donations – a close link to deeply rooted philanthropic traditions and culture. Analogous to the "99 Charity Day" in China, there is a national public welfare festival "Red Nose Day" in the United Kingdom, which has been held for 33 years so far, and has raised a total of 1.068 billion pounds (about 9.5 billion yuan).
In the past decade, the proportion of citizens participating in charitable donations in the UK has basically stabilized at more than 70%, and even in 2020, when everyone is at risk under the epidemic, this figure is 63%. It can be said that British philanthropy is closer to the vision of "public welfare for all".
On February 18, 2019, a large "red nose" appeared near Tower Bridge in London, England, attracting passers-by to take photos.
The power of humor
In the collective memory of Chinese, the scene of the family celebration is probably the annual Spring Festival Gala. Among them, the humorous performances of Zhao Lirong, Feng Gong, Zhao Benshan, Song Dandan and other generations of sketches and cross-talk actors are still the highlight moments in everyone's memory.
Just imagine, if there is such a charity party that allows these artists to get together and do a series of comedy programs for charity and public welfare, coupled with a series of publicity positions, the fundraising effect must be good, right? The success of "Red Nose Day" is largely based on this idea.
Red Nose Day was originally launched in 1988 by the British Comic Relief Foundation. The Foundation was founded in 1985 by comedy screenwriters Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry.
Initially, the two founded the foundation to help raise money for the Great Famine in Ethiopia. They came up with an idea: to gather famous British comedians and screenwriters to rehearse some wonderful humorous plays to entertain the public and raise funds.
In English, "comic relief" refers to a creative technique that adds some humorous plot to tragic and tense passages to temper the audience's nervousness. The name is actually in line with what the foundation wants to do: the public good will inevitably put the reality of poverty and suffering in front of the public, and donations will amplify goodwill and compassion while also carrying a heavy background.
If we can insert a "comic relief" on top of the heavy objective facts, and turn public welfare into a humorous thing by means of comedy satirizing society, we may be able to make more people willing to participate. Public welfare is not all bitter and deep.
After 33 years of development, the main form of "Red Nose Day" is actually a super long TV program like a large domestic gala. On Red Nose Day, the BBC will launch a series of programmes on various channels as a relay.
The BBC Children's Channel, followed by BBC Channel One, will broadcast news of fundraising events, celebrity lineups participating in Red Nose Day, the preview of the party, and so on. From 7 p.m., it was the main film of the Red Nose Gala, which lasted about two and a half hours.
BBC Channel One hosts Alex Scott and Jermyn Jenners take promotional photos for Red Nose Day.
The lineup of the party is very luxurious, not only including veteran heavyweight guests, but also following the current fashion and inviting popular traffic stars to participate. Stars who have participated in the performance and promotion over the years include Cold Play, Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, One Direction, etc.; Anya Taylor Joy, who was invited to participate in the performance last year because of the fire of "The Queen's Chess Game", and this year's publicity ambassadors include "Roll Fu" Benedict Cumberbatch.
In 2015, one of the short plays in the evening was themed after the "Game of Thrones" crew planning a musical, inviting "Mother dragons" Emilia Clark, "Little Devil" Peter Dinrage and James Lannister to play Nicola Coster Waldau, all three of whom sang the lyrics of the self-black line, frantically satirizing their own characters in the play. With the hot wind of "Game of Thrones", the sketch has also gained a fairly high number of hits on the Chinese Internet, and the b station submission has reached 200,000 hits.
The 2017 Red Nose Party made a small short drama of the "True Love Supreme" Red Nose Special Edition, and the original team returned, humorous and relaxed and full of feelings. Although some people jokingly call it "red nose day soft wide", this 16-minute special still got a high score of 8.6 in Douban.
Britain's "Red Nose Day" is very clever in the choice of comedy as a fulcrum, because it has two very significant advantages in itself. First, the red-nosed "clown" comedy image is well known, which makes the public welfare festival have a very high public recognition label. Second, the British themselves have a tradition of watching comedy, from the comedy creation tradition of shakespeare's era to the later radio comedies and television programs, even in the period of economic decline in the United Kingdom, the comedy industry is still one of the best developed industries.
Public welfare and comedy are logically consistent, both to help or comfort people; and the popularity of comedy itself also makes the branches that public welfare can stretch more densely, better intertwined with people's daily habits, and then produce better publicity.
On 23 May 2019, students at Aberdeen Primary School were participating in the Red Nose Day charity event.
Philanthropic innovation starts with the "nose"
Even with a history of 33 years, Red Nose Day has been hit by the pandemic and economic downturn around the world.
The fundraising peak for Red Nose Day in the UK was in 2011, when the total amount raised reached £108 million. In the following events, the amount of fundraising has declined. According to data released by the Office for National Statistics, the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 9.9% in 2020, the largest annual decline on record. Affected by the economic situation, the total amount of donations raised on Red Nose Day this year fell to the trough of recent years, ending with an amount of 52 million pounds.
Under the challenge of the social situation, will the "Red Nose Day" party appear a bit old-fashioned every year?
Martin Scott, a lecturer in media and global development at the University of East Anglia, said in an interview with the media that there is now a growing criticism of "Red Nose Day" in British newspapers and social media. In addition to criticism of donation ethics such as stereotyping recipients and under-manifesting gender equality, Scott also mentioned, "If the Comedy Relief Foundation insists on using pictures, photographs, and narratives that have remained largely unchanged for 20 years, then the grand spectacle of 'Red Nose Day' may be coming to an end." ”
In order to maintain the vitality of "Red Nose Day", the organizers are also trying to make some innovations in combination with new media and trend trends. At present, the British "Red Nose Day" has not made too many interesting social media-based gameplay, but they have started to innovate from the basic commodity "Red Nose".
Since 2015, the main commodity sold, "Red Nose", has also introduced a design similar to a blind box, and about 10 styles will be issued every year, which may also include an ultra-rare nose comparable to the "hidden version" of the blind box, and only one of the 8400 noses may appear. Creative styles include superhero, troll, Frankenstein, Transformers, Dracula, Mummy, Dragon Nose and more.
This year, in order to promote the concept of environmental protection, all red noses have implemented the "plastic-free" production process, and the styles have become images related to nature, such as foxes, caterpillars, snails, badgers and so on.
The creative "red nose" of the environmental theme of 2021.
In addition to the officially issued noses, students and parents are also encouraged to make their own noses by hand and sell them for charity. In an article published in 2019, He Yue, a sociologist living in the UK, mentioned the "Red Nose Day" activity: "Red nose can draw it yourself and do it yourself."
In the supermarket, every week before the red nose, the full box of red nose is placed at the entrance, afraid that customers can't see it, and a big sign is written with three words. This year, 11 noses are available, including 9 red, 1 green (rare), and 1 reversible (ultra rare). The price is not cheap, one will cost 1.35 pounds. However, the packaging clearly states that 65p of the profits will be donated to the comedy relief foundation, the organization. ”
He Yue also wrote that on Red Nose Day, the school will ask parents to donate cakes as an extension of the sale. "Parents donated a room full of cakes, some homemade, some bought from the supermarket, and in bags. Soon there were parents coming, 50p a piece. The British school philanthropy is magical: parents donate items (such as cakes) and then buy them themselves. ”
To be a public welfare product with the participation of the whole people, it is inseparable from creating a symbol or image recognized by the whole people. In Tencent's attempt at "99 Charity Day", this "image" is a small red flower - but its awareness still has a lot of room for improvement. The "red nose" designed by the public's spontaneous participation is ahead in the construction of symbol recognition. More interesting styles of noses mean that "red nose" has a higher sales volume as a public offering product, and it means that "red nose" can be further deeply rooted in the hearts of the people as a public welfare symbol.
In fact, red nose has not only stayed in the annual "red nose day" - since the 1980s, there have also been professionally trained "clown doctors" in the field of medical charity, who will wear red noses to visit the children in the ward, perform magic, sing, etc., and use humor and ease to resolve the panic and stress of children facing the disease.
In the face of suffering, the idea of using happiness and humor to dissolve and support has become more and more popular, and the public welfare fundraising of "Red Nose Day" has become more intimate with the repeated portrayal of the red nose symbol by the media and society.
Promotional photo taken by Benedict Cumberbatch for Red Nose Day 2021.
Nurturing charity for all requires a social commons
In addition to the main content and innovation of "Red Nose Day", the communication platform it chooses is also one of the key points for its successful mobilization of social participation.
As the BBC, the largest radio and television station in the United Kingdom and even in the world, it has left the private business model since its establishment and began to undertake public service functions as a national public media. Currently, funding for its broadcast comes from financial funding from the UK government. But in order to maintain relative independence, its management is a regulatory committee independent of the government, and its members include representatives of all walks of life and representatives of various localities.
Its program types include both news and entertainment, as well as programs that undertake social welfare functions such as science and education, history and culture, and promote cultural co-construction. The "Red Nose Day" party is one of the representatives. It is not only the most extensive publicity channel for charity fundraising activities, but also a platform for social issues such as public welfare and charity.
The "Red Nose Day" event is currently not only held in the United Kingdom, but also in the United States, Australia and other countries have also introduced this practice, and have achieved good results. In fact, China has also had close contact with the "red nose", but it has not become a public welfare festival that continues to be participated by the whole people every year.
In 2017, the "Runaway Comics" brand was authorized by the British organizers to hold a "June 1st Red Nose Day" event. Since 2012, Rampage Comics began to do its own talk show "Rampage Big Event", and its IP Wang Nyima, Tang Maru, Zhang Quanegg, etc. were also popular, as the head of new media, there is a great influence on young people.
Poster for True Love: Red Nose Day Special, aired in 2017.
Perhaps also based on the consideration of its own "comedy" genes, in 2017, Riot Comics and Youku did a live broadcast of the "Red Nose Day" evening, when the promotion and performance guests invited Cai Guoqing, Jia Ling, Wang Lihong, Wang Dongcheng, SNH48 and other stars, and the live broadcast viewed that night reached 4.5 million.
In addition, Riot Comics also put a red nose on the Taobao store, and cooperated with Guangzhou Firefly Comic Exhibition, Lawson Convenience Store, Nongfu Spring, etc., to promote more people to buy peripheral products and participate in public welfare in the form of superimposing brand effects. But this activity did not last long with the rapid decline of the violent comic brand itself, and after 3 sessions, it stopped after 2019.
It is difficult to hold a large-scale charity festival that covers the whole society in the ideal way, and it is difficult to rely on the strength of a brand or an enterprise. After all, the building of charitable habits is an ongoing cause. In this regard, the British "Red Nose Day" chose public media such as the BBC as the main position, which is also an important reason to maintain longevity and vitality.
"In a sense, public television services carry the task of providing space for everyday political life and reproducing the voices of different groups in society in the broadest possible way." In their co-authored articles, Gehao Zhang, Ph.D. in Media and Cultural Analysis at Loughborough University, and Zhang Lei, a researcher at the National Center for Communication Innovation research at the Communication University of China, commented that for public television, the ideal form should be funded and owned by the public, which prevents both government intervention and no advertising pressure. In this theoretical conception, all kinds of public services, including public television, are 'social commons' in the metaphorical sense. ”
The concept of "social commons" refers to the non-profit, publicly shared nature of a piece of land, a space or a platform. The purpose of the commons is to provide equal and widespread services to the public – such as the libraries, museums, parks we are familiar with, as well as newspapers, magazines, social media, etc., can be classified as such a concept.
Its role in society is twofold: first, as a protector and carrier, it can sustainably preserve the public culture of development. The second is similar to Habermas's concept of "public sphere" in communication studies, ideally, the low threshold and openness of the commons can attract more public gathering here, and people can also discuss the issues of social development without restraint, participate more deeply in social life, and then promote the development of the whole society.
Singer Ed Sheeran participated in the "Red Nose Day" promotion.
Zhang Gehao and Zhang Lei believe that in the case of "Red Nose Day", the participation of public media is very critical. "If entertainment programmes can mobilize broad social participation and make it their mission to change the face of society and promote equal development, they can redefine the boundaries of publicity... In such activities, social participation also permeates the daily life of the public, further promoting the cultivation and improvement of civil society with a pan-politicized effect. ”
At present, in China, the organizers of cyclical public welfare activities such as "99 Public Welfare" and "Everyone's Charity Festival" are still mainly concentrated in Internet enterprises. Jin Jinping, director of the Nonprofit Organization Law Research Center of Peking University Law School, mentioned in an interview with the media that Tencent's creation of the "99 Charity Day" public welfare platform itself is very costly to manpower, material and financial resources. "It is necessary for (enterprises) to have the ability and willingness, but also to have the courage to self-renew, and to have the ability to investigate and demonstrate social issues." Therefore, it is very difficult and challenging to build and maintain such a public welfare platform. ”
She said that Tencent's willingness to stand up to create the "99 Charity Day" and do its best to maintain and update is an expression of public goodness, "I hope that more Internet companies can devote themselves to this and build more public welfare platforms." ”
Compared with the once popular but unsustainable rampage comics, social platforms such as WeChat and Weibo obviously have stronger capital support, and their accumulated number of users and benign texts discussing social issues are also more public attributes. However, if you want to achieve "national public welfare", the platform fights alone or even competes with each other, which may not be enough to promote the realization of the goal.
How do Internet companies assume the legitimacy of public services? How can we use the user coverage rate of weChat, Weibo and other star products to promote the expansion of public welfare and gradually approach the "public welfare of the whole people"? How to dilute the profit possibility behind the construction of corporate public welfare brand, and promote the development and construction of national public welfare charity more? These are the difficulties of creating a Chinese version of "Red Nose Day".
Image credit: Red Nose Day
Photo editor: Zhang Xu
Duty Editor: Wan Xiaojun