How a few words could have helped Delhi Police avoid embarrassment over its ad

The Delhi Police has apologised and withdrawn a newspaper advertisement on street children following a notice issued by a child rights panel.

“Considering the dignity of street children, we have withdrawn the advertisement. Our aim was not to hurt the emotions of anyone. If anyone thinks so, we apologise for that,” Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat told_IANS_.

[caption id=“attachment_1004985” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The Delhi police ad[/caption]

He added that the advertisement was withdrawn soon after the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) raised a question about it," Firstpost had reported yesterday.

The headline says, “Help him learn how to chop an onion. Before someone teaches him how to chop a head.”

The body copy says “Underprivileged young adults and children are vulnerable to the lure of crime. The only hope for them is timely intervention and integration of the kind that Delhi Police Yuva Foundation provides. Till now, we have rescued and given vocational training to 64 street children and helped 11 of them get jobs. With your help, we can do even better. Send in your contributions and lend your shoulder to a noble cause.”

When one reads the headline in the context of the image of the young boy, the immediate connect that one makes is of an everyday sight - child labourers at roadside eateries.

Joining the dots - the image + the headline + the body copy - and the autosuggestion is that the Delhi Police helps these rescued children get jobs - which is certainly not against the law.

One has little doubt that the Delhi Police is doing no such thing. The intervention, integration and vocational training that they claim to impart is over a period of time - and the young boy in the image, representing all the young children that the Delhi Police rescues, would have become an adult -old enough to work legally.

That’s what causes the problem - the absence of the explanation. A few words added after “and helped 11 of them get jobs” would have prevented all the grief. “and helped 11 of them get jobs once they were legally old enough to work” would do the trick.

The violence suggested in the headline is a device to shock readers into reading the copy. As a device, that works well.

Perhaps too well, in this case. If this layout had been tested with a few people who were uninvolved in the creation of the advertisement, the objections would have been received, noted and addressed, saving the Delhi Police and Bates, the advertising agency which created the communication unnecessary embarrassment.