In the good old days, public awareness were raised through information flier, annoying (but dedicated, I'll given them credit where credit is due) volunteers standing on straight corners, public speaking advocates, and nice, good natured advertisement on the TV. Boy have things changed. I'm not quite sure when this happened, but apparently everyone got the idea that information alone is inadequate for raising aware. Instead, people must be shocked out of their mind with provocative ads, so much that they are forever burned into the back of our minds, and stir up huge amount of controversy. Case in point, a few weeks ago, new outlets and the Canadian Medical Association were heavily criticizing the Canadian government for moving away from "tough warning labels" on cigarette labels. And by "tough warning labels", they mean graphic, disgusting pictures of rotten teeth, terminally ill patients, and other scenarios depicting the worst possible outcomes of smoking cigarettes. Hmm... I can't speak for anyone else, but those label have zero affects on me. In fact, the most convincing argument against smoke I've seen came from the movie "Thank you for smoking", a hilarious, satirical film following the life of a PR rep for the tobacco industry.
What I'm trying to say is, there's more than one way to advocate a cause, but apparently the people in charge thinks shock tactic is the most effective, if not the only way to raise awareness. The results are these disturbing ads, taken from Adweek's most disturbing ad list for 2010. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
The following ad is to raise awareness for stopping domestic violence. I swear it was for something else before I saw the tagline at the end.
I thought the ad was a campaign against high heel shoes for woman. The ad ridiculously depicts many woman losing their footing walking down a flight of stairs, and fall, dramatically, in slow-motion to a stylized death. After watching this, I'm not sure if I learned anything about domestic violence, but I sure learned not to let my future wife wear heels!
This ad is shocking because it is totally unexpected, as if an ad about popcorn just got hi-jacked, terrorist style.
So, the ad depicts a theater full of people watching a montage of the history and evolution of popcorns on the big screen. Okay, It appears to be some sort of popcorn commercial. You see a modern family microwaving and eating popcorns in the comfort of their home, watching a movie. Then all of a sudden, the little girl on the screen chokes. She can't breath. She's dying. Her mom is hysterical. Her dad is, beside being helpless, utterly useless. The scene becomes more an more uncomfortable as the mom pleads for help from anyone as she watch her daughter dies in her arm. Then, the second plot twist of the commercial: a woman in the seats stood up, and goes behind the movie screen, into the scene. She performs basic first aid procedures to pump the popcorn out of the girl's throat, reviving her back to life. As the mystery woman walks out of the scene, back into the theater (and back into reality), the screen shows its a St. John Ambulance ad promoting basic first aids courses, with the message that you could save a life. Wow, who saw that coming? I was actually intrigued by the creativity that went into making this ad, employing almost another dimension. Nonetheless, I can't help but think this ad was made in a very distasteful matter, and what the Russians would call poshlost.
This ad is by far my favorite "screwed up, wtf" ad. The cause they are promoting is 10:10, getting people to make the commitment of cutting 10% of their carbon admission. The tag line is, "no pressure!" The actually underlining tagline is, "join us or die!" This message is not even subliminal. The people who made this ad seems to be making a threat. The ad shows three scenarios. In the first part, a teacher is talking about cutting carbon admission to a classroom full of high school (elementary?) students. After her pitch, she asks the people who will commit to cutting carbon emission to raise their hands. There are two persons who refused to commit. She says, "no pressure, just want to see a show of hands." Then she presses a button, and the two young kids blows to bits. I'm not going to describe the rest of the video, just watch it. But the point is, the maker of this ad is going purely for the shock affect. There is a thick, unmistakable line between passive-aggressive and pure psychotic; this ad rolls right over that line like Hitler rolled over France in WWII.
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