Now I realize it's only January and we all are still recovering from Christmas, but here at the Yonge Street Mission I'm already thinking about Easter. As I prepare the newspaper ads for the weeks ramping up to Easter this year I am faced with a new dilemma. What photo do I use? In years past it was never an issue because we had a great photo of our "meal man" Lloyd. But Lloyd's passing in November, 2011 has brought up a new discussion about the face of our "Provide a meal" newspaper campaign. Can we use a photo of someone who is deceased? Do we purchase a "stock" image of someone who isn't part of our community? Or do we find a new person to photograph here at the Mission?

Meet Lloyd

Lloyd has been featured in our newspaper ads for the past 4-5 years. He was a community member here at the Yonge Street Mission for many years and was an active participant in our seniors program. I say "was" because Lloyd passed away in November last year. Our whole community was saddened by the loss of our friend Lloyd and it posed a new dilemma for us here in the Development Department. Can we, do we, should we continue to use his photo in our ads?

When Lloyd passed away we had already booked and submitted our ads for the Christmas 2011 season, so it was too late to pull them and create new ones. To be perfectly honest, we weren't sure if we had to at that point. But, as we move into 2012, where we will be creating new ads for the coming Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons we have to decide on the right thing to do.

Over the years we have tested many photos in our ads. In our Easter 2011 newspaper campaign we tested two ads. We ran one with Lloyd's picture and one with a female community member that we affectionately called "Betty" for a month before Christmas. The ads ran back to back, making sure that each one got equal time on peak days of the week. What we found was very interesting to us. The donations that came in from Betty's ads, while slightly larger in amount, were far less in quantity than Lloyd's. There was something about Lloyd's face that compelled people to give. That's why we never hesitated to use his photo and take new ones of him over the years.

It's time to make a decision, but I don't really know where to land. Is it "wrong" to use a photo of a person who is deceased? Are we "lying" if we use a stock photo? Or is it time to just move on and engage someone new?

Has your organization ever faced a dilemma like this? How did you handle it?

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Julia Silvestri
Marketing and Social Media Coordinator, Yonge Street Mission
www.ysm.ca
@ysm_to