Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway

Why it works

A spoof charity single in the style of USA for Africa and Band Aid, in which a choir of young South Africans sings about the plight of freezing Norwegians and urges Africans to send them their radiators. The Norwegian student aid fund SAIH made it to turn fundraising conventions inside out, so that viewers could see how reductive the familiar images of starving children, struggling women and gun-crazed men look when a whole country is reduced to its weather. Released on YouTube on 16 November 2012, it passed a million views within ten days and drew media coverage in many languages across Europe, the US and Africa. It is studied as satire aimed at the industry it belongs to, using the grammar of a charity appeal to critique charity appeals. SAIH followed it with the Rusty Radiator awards, which since 2013 have named the year's most stereotyped fundraising videos alongside Golden Radiators for the best.