They shock, but do these ads bother us?
From Adelaide Now: SHOCK tactics on TV are the mainstay of public warning advertising campaigns – but do they work? FROM a smoky haze, the Grim Reaper emerges – scythe in one hand, bowling ball in the other. He takes aim at his human targets at the end of the alley and powers the missile at them…………..more.
My Comment:
In my opinion I think the quit smoking shock ads are more about getting short term results for the the Quitline. You see, if they get the calls just after that advert then it is like they are registering hits and can measure the results of the ad. This then justifies their whole approach and gets them more money to scare people into calling again. But I don’t think that the long term results can be measured this way. Getting someone to call verses getting them to quit smoking are two different things. So it makes sense for them to make the ads as shocking as possible to register as many calls as possible while the smokers are scared.
My argument to Quit has been to combine their negative campaigns with a positive, supportive campaign like the Quitober Challenge as a trial and see what sort of results we could get. Their response is that it needs to be tested first. Well we have smokers dying to quit so I say lets try it on them now not wait till some researcher is paid $200k to work out over 3 years that using the carrot and stick does work!
