The Art of Convincing Citizens to Donate Blood

Taylor Pust

Professor Watkins

English 137.13

October 12, 2017

Historically, convincing people to insert a needle into their arm to donate blood has been

a challenging task. Donating blood is not something people do habitually. Making people feel

safe and convincing them that the cause is worth fighting for is something that many foundations

grapple with. When the American Red Cross was formed, one of the biggest struggles they

faced was creating posters that would convince people to want to donate blood. During WWII,

the American Red Cross created a poster that featured a solider and read, “Your Blood Can Save

Him.” The same foundation created a poster in 2016 with a lot more words and fewer visuals,

that also encourages the population to donate blood. During two different time periods when

blood was desperately needed, the Red Cross Foundation chose to create these two strikingly

different posters that utilized pathos, diction, commonplaces, and Kairos, but ultimately, the

WWII poster was able to use them more effectively and elicit active civic engagement

throughout society.

When trying to get people to support a cause, it is extremely critical to connect with them

on an emotional level. Connecting on an emotional level allows the audience to experience

compassion. Compassion is when a person truly feels for someone else and is urged to take

action to help make the situation better. While looking at the two posters with an emotional lens,

the WWII poster created by J Franklin Whitman hones in on a pathos approach more than the

2016 American Red Cross poster does. J Franklin Whitman does a phenomenal job creating an
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emotional attachment between the audience and the solider in the picture. A wounded solider

conveys a message of vulnerability and an urgency for help from the citizens in order to survive.

This urges people to do a simple task in order to save a solider that they possibly know. By

connecting with the audience on an emotional, and perhaps personal, level, J Franklin Whitman

makes the citizens realize that the soldiers will die without their help, thus making the cause even

more urgent. While the 2016 American Red Cross does use pathos, it is not as successful as the

WWII poster. The main pathos appeal in this recent poster is that it highlights the idea of life by

showing a human outline with an arm reaching out. By linking the poster to life itself, the artist

attempts to seal an emotional connection with the audience. However, the “human” is

technically not human, for it is merely just an outline of a person’s body. No human structures

are shown, and it blends in with the background. Because of the lack of true human qualities, it

is hard for the audience to make a connection with just an outline on a piece of paper. If the

foundation would have used a real person or chose to show realistic human qualities, they could

have made more of an impact on the audience since they are, in fact, human themselves. In

order to feel compassion, the audience must be able to establish a connection with someone else,

which they were not able to do with this poster. Ultimately, the human outline is the sole pathos

attempt shown in the recent poster, which makes it less convincing than the WWII blood drive

poster. Both posters draw upon pathos, but the WWII poster is more personal and powerful, and

therefore, prompted a larger group of people to realize their civic duty to take action by donating

blood.

The word choices and visuals that posters and propaganda choose to use can also create a

personal and powerful outcome when it comes to civic engagement. One of the most prominent

differences between the two posters pertains to the amount of words they use. The WWII poster
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has a small total of only five words, while the 2016 poster has over triple the amount of words.

While this may not seem like a huge deal, it is crucial when it comes down to the success of the

posters. When people are walking down the street, more times than not, they will not stop to

read a poster with tiny words that they can only see when they are extremely close. For this

reason, the poster must jump out with few words and immediately grab their attention. That is

exactly what the WWII poster does. With a small amount of big, bold words, it immediately

captivates the citizens to not only look at the poster, but also engage with it. The main focus of

the poster is the picture of the soldier, which sparks thoughts of the topic of blood donation. For

this reason, few words are needed because it is left open for the interpretation of the citizens. In

the 2016 poster, there is one tiny visual and a large amount of words. The lack of visuals was

overcompensated with a large amount of words, which does not captivate the audience because it

comes across as too forced and impersonal. Not only do the amount of words and pictures come

into play but so does the specific diction. The WWII poster also does a great job in prompting

the citizens to take action by directly targeting them with, “Your Blood Can Save Him” (my

italics). By using “your” the artist was able to make the citizens realize that it was not anyone’s

duty but their own. This is the true beauty of the poster because it makes each and every single

person feel needed, just by its personalized diction. The recent poster uses the pronoun “I”,

which makes it seem as though it is coming from one person: the artist of the poster. This

detaches the citizens from the cause, which makes them believe someone else will take action,

rather than taking action themselves. The 2016 poster’s diction does not try to actively engage

the citizens by telling them to go donate blood, which was a huge downfall of their

advertisement. The recent poster comes across as more of an infomercial due to its high quantity

of words and facts. The way in which posters use their visuals and diction will be the
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determining factor of whether or not the citizens feel directly targeted enough to act. The recent

poster does not contain enough powerful diction or visuals, but, in contrast, the war poster does,

which targets the individual citizen and eventually prompts them to take into consideration

aspects they have in common with other Americans.

The backbone of both of these American Red Cross posters relies on the commonplaces

of American culture. Both posters convey the commonplace that donating blood will save lives,

whether it be a soldier’s life or a regular civilian life. If donating blood will save lives, then the

citizens are compelled to help. This is a powerful message from the American Red Cross

because they know it will hit home with their audience’s culture. It is innate in American culture

to help someone when they are down, and the posters push on this point in order to drive people

to act. Americans take satisfaction in helping other humans, rather than helping just an idea of

someone. By directly saying who the blood will save, the WWII poster conveys the idea that

this urgent task will directly and immediately save “him.” The “him” being mentioned in this

poster is the solider. The true identity of the man is being hidden due to his face being covered,

which makes the reader question, “Who is he?” The “he” being shown is hurt and is in a

vulnerable position. The soldier could essentially be a loved one from any citizen. Unlike the

WWII poster, the recent poster does not point out who will be saved, which makes it less

personal to the audience. Americans like the idea of knowing who they are helping because they

know that they are definitely making some sort of impact. Citizens in America are known for

helping people without anything in return, and this can be seen through nonprofit organizations

and volunteerism. Both posters thrive on the commonplace of helping others. They both make

you put others before yourself in order to benefit the country as a whole. Whether Americans
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know it or not, they make decisions based off of their commonplaces, which is why the

American Red Cross chose to successfully focus on them.

When creating a poster that has an intention to spark action, the artist, of course, must keep in

mind the time period in which people are living. Kairos is a huge aspect in the WWII poster’s

success. During the time of war, almost every single citizen had a loved one in the war, or at

least knew somebody fighting. This made the cause hit close to home. By highlighting the war,

the artist made the citizens face a reality that they did not want to face: people they knew were

getting hurt, and people were dying. The artist could not have picked a better time for this poster

because it made people believe that if they donate blood, they would save the soldiers, which

would in turn help win the war and bring loved ones home. This was the end goal for many

people, so it prompted them to take action. The Kairos in the recent poster was not as successful.

Around the time when this poster was published, a huge shooting occurred at Pulse night club in

Orlando. Many people needed blood transfusions due to their bullet wounds. The Red Cross

Foundation could have utilized this event to grab the citizens’ attention, but instead, they decided

to go with a more general poster that did not connect to any major event. It was still using

Kairos by highlighting the constant need for blood, but it was not as effective. The poster did not

give the people anything they could connect to. The failure to effectively utilize the major

Kairos during 2016 resulted in people not taking as much action. Because of this, a larger

amount of people donated blood in the WWII blood drive campaign, rather than the recent blood

drive that was being advertised. The outcome of these two blood drives proves that in order to

be successful, the propaganda and posters must connect to the citizens during that distinct time

period.
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Both of these posters were created by the American Red Cross in order to convince

citizens to take part in the civic duty of donating blood. The posters both employ pathos, diction,

commonplaces, and Kairos, but only the WWII poster was able to effectively use them in a way

that elicits life-changing action. The WWII poster grabbed peoples’ attention from a myriad of

angles, which helped influence the American citizens. The WWII poster left an impact on the

citizens that encountered it and provoked them to participate in a task that was bigger and more

important than any single individual. As a result, the American Red Cross was successful in

their WWII blood drive poster, but they failed to spark significant action with their 2016 poster.
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References

“Again and Again in World War Ii, Blood Made the Difference.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian
Institution, 1 Mar. 1995, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/again-and-again-in-
world-war-ii-blood-made-the-difference-90531278/.

Schudson, Michael and H.I. Marrou. Rhetoric and Civic Life. New Jersey: Pearson Learning
Solutions, 2013. Print.

“You Can Make a Difference.” American Red Cross, The American National Red Cross, 2017,
www.redcross.org/ns/apology/disaster_homepage.html.