This advertisement (which I refuse to show here) compares smoking to terrorism, and uses the imagery of the WTC on 9/11 in cigarette form.
I realize that marketing school is turning out those fancy edge-pusher graduates who think that shock value is the only way to get a message across, but that is going way too far.
And I’m not using caps or italics or bold or extra vowels to state that, but there is rage brewing inside of me. And I’m not going to stoop to their level by suggesting, “when your parents die in a fiery car crash please send me images of their dead bodies so I can post them on my blog and advise people to fly to their destination via [insert my favorite airline here] instead” … but I kinda wanna.
And it’s not even the first time.
They could have had one cigarette and put it in the context of an industrial smokestack and it would have had the same message without being so offensive… but instead they just went this way eh?
Sometimes people need to keep their lulz to themselves.
Yah, at first that’s what I thought it was, but then I thought, “that smoke looks too dark…” and then I read the fine print. And then I got mad.
I think that whomever designed that ad deserves to be slapped in the face. Twice. Selfish fuckers.
Go. Angel.
I TOTALLY agree. Face slap might be too good for them, though.
The textual content of the ad is comparing the number of deaths from terrorism with the number of deaths from smoking. That makes sense to me.
Yeah, I think there is a definite trend toward offensive = attention getting. Hopefully the pendulum will swing the other way.
SEETHING
You know, I question the people who make up statistics. 10 Million deaths from smoking since 2001? O RLY?
I know someone who died in a car crash.
I know someone who died in the war.
I know someone who died from AIDS.
I never met anyone who died from smoking.
Avi, their message is lost on me because I am too busy being angry about their methods.
Bearette, if not soon I’m going to find that damn pendulum and start pushing on it myself.
Pat, my paternal grandfather died from lung cancer caused by smoking but his wife, my paternal grandmother is still alive well into her 80s after continuing to smoke for 30 years after his death. Craps shoot. People can die from anything given “ideal” circumstances. Doesn’t mean we need to make gross comparisons about two methods of dying, which I’m sure you and I are in agreement over.
Its just the odds thing that bugs me about the stats. You just don’t hear about people trying to ban cars because so many people die in them.
And gross comparisons about deaths? Like terror victims to smokers?
Yup, exactly. We are agreeing, I promise. I just randomly happen to have the life experience of knowing the smoker who died but not (yet) the person in war, the person with AIDS, the person in the car crash. I found it ironic to realize I didn’t know anyone who died in those circumstances, because I know of people who have died a lot of other ways.
I am offended.
The thinbg with smoking is this:
It’s a choice. No one forces it on you.
Addiction sucks but seriously, if I can quit miraculous things can happen to anyone.
Drinking will kill you quicker and / or cause you to kill someone in an instant. Nobody taxes this crap.
Drunks get ‘drink responsibly’ party hearty ads. Smokers get the twin towers.
Over taxing cigarettes is taxation without representation.
Based on that theory, there should be gigantic taxes on motocycles and butter and fast food….anything bad for you. Especially alcohol. They could do that very same ad with butter sticks or two bottles of Jack.
And lastly, I am entirely sick of non-smokers and their nasty bullshit. I wonder if I could demand that nobody wear perfume around me because it grosses me out?
Offensive is the new ad style. Head On?? Seriously.
I think I’d like to shove several thousand lit cigarettes up the ass of whoever approved that ad for publication & thought it would have an impact in a good way. Do people really make these kinds of lifestyle changes based on ads? Most folks who I know, that quit smoking, did so because of other, more personal reasons, not shit they saw on billboards or in newspapers.
Fucktards.
Miss Ann, perhaps it’s a conspiracy by the cigarette companies themselves to piss us off so badly that we keep smoking or start up smoking in defiance. (My daddy taught me well on being a conspiracy theorist.) Don’t forget the bacon. Bacon kills. And I don’t care that it does.
Sour, exactly. Anything I’ve ever quit wasn’t because of extreme advertising.
Dawg, but probably rich fuctards which makes them fucktardier.
WTF? I mean, smoking is bad for you, but how tacky and inappropriate is that????
Abs, I just don’t think they thought it through. Are they making light of all the people who did die in terrorist attacks? Because that’s the message I’m receiving. All those lives lost are somehow suddenly less important than all the lives lost to smoking. Is that the message they want me hearing? I think I now need to go work for that organization as the “lay person” so that I can tell them “yah, no, the message you’re trying to convey is NOT being heard. And you’re all stupid.”
(Plus, you know what else they’re saying? Smokers are terrorists and people around them are their victims. That’s pretty fucking hardcore.)
That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying that we’re so worried about terrorism, but the number of people it’s killed is nothing compared to smoking.
Avi, if I can find a message in an advertisement they mean it. Advertisers research ALLLLL the angles. They don’t mean only one message, ever. Don’t tell me that’s not what they’re saying. They’re trying to say that smokers kill people with second-hand smoke. It’s not their primary message, their primary message is that terrorists haven’t killed enough people yet (but cigarettes have), but it’s still a message muddled into that image.
I really think they’re saying that the WTC image is so powerful because people think terrorists have killed so many when in reality, the image of a cigarette should be a much more powerful image.
Yes, they are saying that too. Advertising isn’t about a single message, though. Ever.
Newsweek just ran a story about how ad agencies are crossing the couth line to make impact. True creative can get a point across without summoning shock value.
Dan, I’m insulted by the implication that I am somehow too stupid to understand their point unless they shock my system. I think we should invite a panel of them to discuss their thought process for this ad. Defend your thesis!!!