The Syrian War has been an ongoing battle since March 2011, between the government and a rebel group. The war has caused over 470,000 deaths, one out of ten people have been severely injured, and over 11 million have been pushed out of their homes all in the last five years. Many think that this is a Syrian war, therefore Syria should fight their own battles and other countries need to stay out of it. People are ignoring the conflict, and the effects that it has on the innocent. My advertisement shows the consequences the war has on the Syrians who are neutral in the war. The producer effectively convinces viewers that Syria needs assistance from other influential countries through the use of a young girl and realistic events paired with an emotional appeal.

The advertisement is geared to people who live outside of Syria or those who don’t know about the war that is currently occurring. The headline of the ad is “What If This Happened to Your Country?” which triggers people to actually put themselves in the same shoes as the girl in the video. It makes viewers think “do they really want to go through the same thing that the girl is going through or do they want their child, or family member to go through the same tragic events”. 

The main focus of the video is of a young girl. The purpose of using a girl as the focal point instead of a young boy is because more people sympathize with girls. Especially in the Middle Eastern countries because women are so confined to what a man expects of them. Middle Eastern women are required to cover their bodies including their face and hands. Women are considered property of a man rather than identified as her own person. Also with using a girl that is young, signifies innocence. She is so innocent that she should not have to endure the wrath of the war, she does not deserve to live in those type of conditions. She resembles many other children that live in different countries with her brown hair, brown eyes, and fair skin`. Parents will resonate with the little girl because they will think of their own children. Even having a nameless girl allows parents to assimilate the young to their children. The people in the video are given names like Adam, Granny, and Mommy, therefore there is no accident that the girl, the main character, was anonymous.  

Although the girl is the main focus of the advert, her surroundings plays a significant role to appeal to viewers’ emotions. In the beginning of the video they use events that are highly relatable to an average person. The first scene is the girl having a birthday party, she is surrounded with her friends and family. A great selection of people celebrates their birthday with a party or some type of celebration. Then she plays dress up in her mother’s clothes, puts on makeup, she hugs on a stuffed animal, plays on the playground, and goes to school. Those are some activities that many grown women would think back and say “Oh I’ve done that before!” or maybe “I remember when…”.  If they cannot share the same experiences they will at least think that she is like any other typical child.

Around thirty seconds into the video her surroundings begin to change. Her family is franticly moving out of their house; based on the girl’s facial expression, this move was not a highly anticipated. She does not look thrilled about their new house, but she is content. Her new living arrangements are short lived when they are yet again rushed out of their house. This time around they do not pack the car, they did not have any belongings. From that point on the girl seems so disconnected from the video, she is emotionless. Now they do not have a home to live in, no medicine to aid the ill, no food, and no water. She has suffer from bombings that happen right behind her, losing her father, and confusion. The girl went from having everything that she needed, safety, food, water, shelter, to instantly worrying about what about your next meal and if you will survive to see tomorrow. Her happy moments only were short-lived in the ad to illustrate to outsiders how fast their lives are changed because of the war. They can have a house, job, their family, then in a matter of minutes all of that is gone. They are left alone, scared, and left for dead. 

All of the events of the war caused significant damage to the young girl. At the end of the advert, the girl is rescued from the war, but she is still completely detached from life. She has no expressions on her face and when it was her birthday she did not have the same excitement that she did in the beginning of the video. A birthday is something that many kids are excited about because they get presents, have cakes, or at least they know that everything that day is about them. The girl has no excitement in her face, she looks defeated and traumatized from everything that just happened to her. 

Many innocent people are affected by the Syrian war, and those people go unnoticed by numerous countries. There are children whose life have been drastically changed in a matter of days, kicked out their homes, separated from their family, and faced near death experiences. The advert shows the consequences the war has had on young girl, and how fast it altered her life forever. In the beginning she was full of life and as time progresses she slowly becomes numb to the world around her. Although this is a production and not a true story, this is based on real life on a real life war; a war that is tearing children away from the homes and their families. 
