When it comes to anti-smoking advertising, how far is too far?
- Posted by Ellyn Davidson on April 2nd, 2009
filed in Advertising, Anti-Smoking Campaigns, Healthcare Marketing, Social Marketing |
This morning on the Today Show, Matt Lauer did a five-minute segment about New York’s new anti-smoking campaign. One of the spots depicts a child being left on his own; his mother has left him in the middle of a train station. This is an effective metaphor for what the potential results are when parents choose to smoke: They could die and leave their children alone and lost. We’ve been talking about it in our office and I’m sure there are similar conversations going on across the country.
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It’s particularly interesting to us at Brogan & Partners–we’ve been creating powerful social marketing messages for over 22 years with many of our efforts focused on anti-smoking.
One of our most powerful campaigns positions young children being affected by their parent’s secondhand smoke. The results of this campaign were overwhelming. We received requests from health departments all over the country to run the campaign–including the state of New York.
From truth.com to state government messaging to tobacco companies, everyone’s trying to deliver that golden message. From kids being left alone, to dead bodies, to really gross diseases, how far is too far? You be the judge.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I think the above commercial with kids talking about how they smoke is terrific. It is certainly more gentle than the train station spot, but I think it is more emotional because we are hearing the kids voices and thoughts. It reminds me of the Kaiser spot by Campbell-Ewald of the young boy talking about the bad habits he had when he was younger.
One issue is that these two antismoking spots only target a very specific audience, who meet the all of the following criteria:
1. people with kids
2. people who believe that smoking can kill them
3. people who connect their own behavior to its impact on the well-being of their kids
4. people for whom #3 outweighs the short-term, perceived benefits of smoking.
I am going seek out the other commercials in this campaign. If anyone has the links, please post them. Thanks!
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I think both of these ads are awesome! Hopefully striking emotion in people will unnerve them enough to try to stop smoking. It beats the alternative. And I’ve witnessed the alternative first hand.