Seattle based Donor Power Blog really didn’t like the latest Oxfam Ireland advert, and featured it in its ‘Stupid nonprofit ads’ series.

The advert promotes Oxfam Ireland’s campaign ‘Climate Change Destroys Lives. Let’s Face it’, which seeks to recruit thousands of new campaigners to lobby the government ahead of crucial UN talks in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Now whilst I agree with Donor Power Blog on most matters, I didn’t hate this advert. It was visually beautiful, and the voiceover by Jeremy Irons grabbed my attention. (Why did Jeremy Irons do the voiceover for Oxfam? I don’t know. Probably not for the same reason that Dame Judi Dench voiced those Vodafone ‘make the most of now’ adverts.)

Yes, the advert could have been more specific about the call to action (sign up!) and the urgency of the campaign (sign up now!), but what is the media plan? Where is it being placed? I don’t feel I know enough to make a judgement.

But clearly, they’ve still got work to do: So far 3,289 people have signed up to the campaign, which according to the ‘totaliser’ on the campaign’s microsite is less than a third of the way to their goal.

I would like to see more video content on the microsite, and more obvious calls to connect with Oxfam Ireland on Facebook – where there are several videos – and Twitter. I would be much more likely to engage with the campaign and microsite if updates about the campaign were directed to my news feed and Twitter stream.

The microsite needs to convey a sense of urgency, so I would expect to see the ‘Live Countdown to Copenhagen’ right on the home page. I also want to learn about what Oxfams across the world are doing for this campaign, and how my local actions are part of a global movement to solve this global crisis.