💵Why £2 Suddenly Feels Like Everything

This WaterAid ad hits hard—and that’s exactly why it works. It takes a cold statistic and makes it personal, emotional, and impossible to ignore.

Why It Works

This is a textbook example of a direct-response tactic known as Dimensionalization—a way of adding sensory, visual, and emotional context to a raw claim. It transforms a stat into a story by adding depth to the message. 

This ad grabs your attention immediately – the stat “every two minutes” is shocking. But, it’s the image that makes it real: a woman carrying a child while standing in visibly dirty water. This ad succeeds because it takes a faceless statistic and gives it weight, context, and urgency. It forces the viewer to connect the dots. This isn’t theoretical—this is real.

The copy then pivots immediately into a solution, using both contrast and simplicity. After confronting the viewer with a death toll, it follows with an actionable and almost shockingly affordable fix: “£2 per month can help change this.” The emotional appeal is high-stakes, but the ask is low-friction. The solution feels doable. That contrast is key to giving this ad its power.

Without dimensionalization, “children die from dirty water” is sadly forgettable. This ad could’ve just said “dirty water kills.” Instead, it makes you feel it. That’s what moves people.

How to Apply This Concept:

Utilize Dimensionalization to provide better emotional connection and urgency to your statistic. For example: 

• Insurance: A life insurance company could show a teenager looking over unpaid bills with the line: “1 in 4 families go into debt after a loss.”

• Security Industry: A home security brand might use actual footage from a neighborhood break-in with the stat: “Most burglaries happen between 10am and 3pm.”

• Fitness Industry: A fitness app might showcase a side-by-side of someone before and after using the program with copy like, “20 minutes a day is all it takes,” grounding the transformation in daily, dimensional terms.

• Meal Delivery: A meal delivery service could show a frazzled parent surrounded by chaos at dinnertime with a stat like “60% of parents say cooking is the most stressful part of their day.”

This ad proves that facts alone don’t move people—feelings do. When you give your message dimension, you’re not just telling people the problem but showing what it looks and feels like. That’s what gives this ad its power. 

If you want some more ad inspiration, make sure to study today's sponsor:

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