"Read this you piece of shit". Saatchi & Saatchi

(17th Feb 2009.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/nov/09/voluntarysector18

How to get shock value for money

Nicola Hill speaks to Ed Jones, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, about the use charities can make of advertising to further their cause.

• Nicola Hill
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 November 2000 10.49 GMT
• Article history

"Read this you piece of shit."

So ran an eye-catching advertisement run by Anti-Slavery International in 1995. It is also the image selected by Saatchi & Saatch to lure readers to its new book on social campaigning, Social Work.

"Shock is now considered an approach to be used with caution," says Ed Jones, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. He warns of compassion fatigue but says using painful images is sometimes unavoidable. An example he draws on is Italy's Greenpeace ad, Women and Children First, which shows a baby's head hideously deformed as a result of his mother having been exposed to 'harmless' radiation fallout from earlier tests in Soviet Kazakhstan.

In contrast, he points to the recent adverts by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, (NSPCC) which depict children's icons, such as the Spice Girls and Alan Shearer, the footballer, shielding their eyes from painful events. "Using the viewers' imagination can be the most powerful tool possible," he says.

However, most charities cannot run to the advertising budget enjoyed by NSPCC. Jones says they should not be deterred. "Big ideas" he says, "can turn small budgets into powerful campaigns."

Jones cites the example of a London creative team who used a single poster to help ban .22 calibre handguns. After the massacre of schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, parliament was introducing a law to ban certain firearms, but not .22 handguns. The team, with no money and no time, decided to act.

They discovered that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated with a .22 gun. Using a stock photograph of Kennedy, they had a poster printed to go on a lorry parked outside parliament on the day of the debate. "If a .22 handgun is less deadly," it asked, "why isn't he less dead?" An amendment was added to include the banning of .22 guns.

When money is tight, voluntary organisations that spend on advertising want a definite return on their investment. Jones says: "Decide on your objective and aim your message at powerful people. You need a spectacular advertisement which will get the issue on journalists' agendas."

However, Jones insists that social advertisements must be rigorously checked. "On any contentious issue, the smallest inaccuracy will be seized upon by opponents and used to discredit the argument."

Jones's advice overall is to be adventurous. "Your message has to be really powerful and life-transforming, otherwise you are wasting your money."

• Ed Jones joined Saatchi and Saatchi in London as a copywriter in 1984. From 1990 - 97 he was director of the Middle East region during the Gulf War and then moved on to be central and eastern Europe regional creative director. Since the beginning of 2000 he has been based in London as the creative director for Saatchi and Saatchi worldwide.

Saving children from a living death ???

I need to find out what this "saving children from a living death" campaign is.
It's the Barnardo's campaign that got complaints, but was cleared.
I think this might be important for my primary research?
I know that it is offensive, as people cared enough to complain to the ASA, but obviously did not offend enough (or breach any of the Advertising Codes) to be pulled.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/12/childrensservices.advertising1

An exert from an article from The Guardian:
Wednesday 12 November 2003 14.01 GMT

The last Barnardo's campaign, which showed images of adult suicides and tragic deaths with the line "saving children from a living death", attracted around 20 complaints but was cleared by the ASA.


Is this it?!

Verbal Abuse ads.

http://www.saatchi.com/worldwide/ideas_gallery.asp

Saatchi & Saatchi
Client/Product
Association of Women for Action & Research (AWARE)
"Verbal abuse can be just as horrific. But you don't have to suffer in silence..."


Maybe a lesser "hyped" yet still hard hitting ad would be a good way to go for my primary research?

Do I need to get people's initial reaction? Ie: are people desensitised to ads such as the Barnardos heroin baby, or alternatively, are people led to think that it is extremely controversial?

Barnardo's defends shock adverts

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1385881.stm


From the BBC News Website
Wednesday, 13 June, 2001, 14:24 GMT 15:24 UK

Children's charity Barnardo's shocking new series of anti-child abuse advertisements has prompted concern from the advertising industry's own advisory body.

The £1m campaign in national newspapers aims to show the effects of child cruelty in later life.

The charity has already modified two of five images of abuse victims, in the light of concerns from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

But it remains locked in dispute with the advisory body about whether two other images in the new campaign breach advertising codes.

The campaign - which uses fictional case studies instead of real people - will continue for the next six weeks and will be re-run in the autumn.

The content is meant to shock

One of the adverts which the ASA fears may cause offence shows a prostitute buried beneath rubbish in a car park, with only her knickers, legs and blonde hair showing.

She was neglected as a child, the advert says, and was lured into the sex trade and beaten to death by her pimp.

Andrew Nebel, the charity's director of marketing and communications, told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme that such shock tactics were justified.

'Lost dignity'

"This is an individual that has lost all dignity.

"They have lost their life and there are a worthless object.

Barnardo's says it wants to save lives

"Barnardo's is about trying to prevent children from being worthless adults whether they are alive or dead."

And he said the campaign had to be hard hitting for maximum impact.

"The younger that we can start working with children the more we can hope to steer them away from these dreadful and negative outcomes."

The other advert which has raised concern is of a young alcoholic drowning in a canal.

Wasted life

The first image in the campaign showed a man's barefoot body dangling from a noose in a rundown garage, with a dirty sheet blocking the light from a window.

The text said: "John Monk. Died: Age 4 years. From the age of four, John was raped by his grandad and a large part of him died. His hope and joy died. His future died.

"Twenty-two years later, he hanged himself and died for real. What a waste.

"At Barnardo's we want to save people like John from a living death."

The charity has already removed graphic images of blood from adverts showing a man who has shot himself and of a teenage drug addict having fallen from a building.

Last year's "heroin baby" generated complaints

Barnardo's provoked complaints a year and a half ago with its picture of a baby injecting heroin.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) said that image was "too shocking" to be shown.

But Barnardo's said it was highly effective in highlighting the plight of abused or disadvantaged children.

The children's charity spends 88p of every pound it raises on charity projects and last year raised more than £30m.

How Barnardo's measure their success.

http://www.barnardos.org.uk/resources/resources_students_advertising.htm

How do you measure the success of your advertising?

Each year we commission an independent research agency to carry out qualitative research pre / post the launch of the advertising. This research involves a new sample of individuals each year which is representative of our target audience. They are each individually interviewed for approximately 30 minutes on a wide range of questions.

Many of the questions remain consistent so that we can measure the shift in responses so for example we can track:

• Awareness of Barnardo’s (both when people are asked about us specifically and when they are asked to name charities themselves at random)
• How deserving Barnardo’s is as a charity
• Awareness and thoughts about the work Barnardo’s does

'Offensive' Barnardo's advert draws complaints

From The Independent Online. By Graham Hiscott

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/offensive-barnardos-advert-draws-complaints-735580.html

Thursday, 13 November 2003

Dozens of people complained yesterday to the advertising watchdog about a hard-hitting new campaign for the children's charity Barnardo's.

The first in the series of newspaper advertisements from Barnardo's shows a new-born baby with a cockroach crawling out of his mouth.

More than 60 people contacted the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) through its website by lunchtime.

Another ad in the campaign features a baby with a methylated spirits bottle in its mouth. A third shows a baby with a syringe. The headline says: "There are no silver spoons for children born into poverty."

An ASA spokeswoman said the complaints received so far were on the grounds that the adverts were "offensive".

The campaign is designed to highlight the fact that babies born into poverty are more likely to grow up to be addicted to alcohol and drugs, become victims and perpetrators of crime and to be homeless.

Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show one in three children in Britain lives in a family which survives below the poverty line of £242 a week.

Andrew Nebel, the director of marketing and communications at Barnardo's, defended the adverts. He said: "They are deliberately attention-seeking. We deal in shocking issues so if we talk about our work it is going to be seen as controversial.

"That means breaking through some of the complacency when it comes to child poverty because large numbers of people don't know it exists at the level it does."

Cockroach advert banned by industry watchdog wins place in year's top 10

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/cockroach-advert-banned-by-industry-watchdog-wins-place-in-years-top-10-578123.html

By Terry Kirby, Chief Reporter
Wednesday, 31 December 2003

An advertising campaign for Barnardo's which was banned by watchdogs has been voted among the best this year by the industry.

An advertising campaign for Barnardo's which was banned by watchdogs has been voted among the best this year by the industry.

The adverts for the children's charity, which included a computer-generated photograph of a newborn baby with a cockroach crawling out of his mouth, provoked 466 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) - the highest number this year.

The authority upheld the complaints, saying the pre-Christmas campaign could "cause serious or widespread offence". Barnardo's was ordered not to repeat the adverts.

Now Campaign magazine has voted the campaign created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) No 6 in a list of the year's top 10.

It said: "Any campaign tackling child poverty needs to be thought-provoking and BBH came up with the goods for Barnardo's." The wording on the cockroach advertisement said: "Baby Greg is one minute old. He should have a bright future. Poverty is waiting to rob Greg of hope and spirit and is likely to lead him to a future of squalor."

Other adverts in the series included a baby with a syringe in her mouth - a warning that childhood poverty could lead to drug abuse - and a baby with a meths bottle in her mouth - a message about alcoholism.

Before the campaign was launched, the charity had it vetted by the Committee of Advertising Practice, which drew up the ASA's code. Barnardo's said that the committee had raised no objections.

A spokeswoman for the charity said yesterday: "We gain nothing from this type of recognition apart from knowing we were working with a very professional agency."

Campaign's accolade for best advert of the year was given to Land Rover for a poster featuring Masai tribesmen and children standing in the shape of its Freelander model. Campaign said: "Yet again, Land Rover has delivered what is arguably this year's best piece of aspirational car advertising."

"Barnardo's cockroach adverts banned"

From The Independent. By Martin Hickman

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/barnardos-cockroach-adverts-banned-576199.html

Wednesday, 10 December 2003

An advertising campaign for the children's charity Barnardo's, showing cockroaches crawling out of the mouths of new-born babies, has been banned following a record number of complaints.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that Barnardo's used "shocking images" in its campaign and ordered them to be withdrawn.

Three adverts depicted babies' mouths filled with a cockroach, a syringe and a bottle of methylated spirits, with the slogan: "There are no silver spoons for children born into poverty".

Barnardo's defended the campaign as a stark portrayal of the wickedness of poverty. It said the pictures also demonstrated the often distressing nature of its work. But newspaper readers were upset by the computer-enhanced images and 466 complained to the ASA, the highest number this year.

Complainants said the adverts were "offensive, shocking and unduly distressing". Some suggested the adverts could encourage children to copy the images.

Barnardo's compared the campaign to hard-hitting adverts for road safety or anti-smoking which "caused distress for good reason."

In its ruling, the ASA said that children were unlikely to copy the adverts. But it decided that the campaign had broken the advertising code of practice because it could "cause serious or widespread offence."

Diana Green, Barnardo's director of communications, said the charity would abide by the watchdog's recommendations but it did not agree with them.

"We make no apologies because we have raised the debate of child poverty," she said.

"PR Week" Article on Barnardo's Silver Spoon Ads.

http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/197699/Barnardos-silver-spoon-ads-finally-banned-ASA/

by Chris Scott, 10-Dec-03

LONDON - The advertising watchdog has banned Barnardo's controversial 'silver spoon' advertising, disappointing the children's charity, after the campaign racked up almost 500 complaints.

The national print campaign, created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, bore the tagline "there are no silver spoons for children born into poverty". It featured harsh images of newborn babies with a cockroach, syringe or bottle of methylated spirits protruding from their mouths.

The campaign attracted 466 complaints in all and prompted Barnado's to run further print ads apologising for any offence caused, but also defending the creative work.

Upholding a complaint that the ads were offensive, shocking and unduly distressing, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the ads were "likely to cause serious or widespread offence". It ordered Barnardo's not to repeat the campaign.

A second complaint that the ads were irresponsible and could be copied by children was not upheld.

Diana Green, Barnardo's director of communications, said that the charity was unhappy with the ASA's adjudication.

"We're quite upset and disappointed by the adjudication. We worked closely with the Committee on Advertising Practice in advance and, although it can only give guidance, we received a lot more complaints than we expected," she said.

She added that the charity was still pleased with the campaign and had seen an upsurge in interest, receiving six times the donations previous campaigns have attracted and double the normal number of hits it receives on its website.

"We're pleased we had the debate about poverty as there was a lot of apathy and disbelief associated with the issue beforehand,' Green said.

Guardian Article "Wit and imagination deliver the biggest shock of all"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V-zxWY3vsY&feature=related

By Joshua Blackburn, Wednesday 8 November 2006 00.07 GMT

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all, quipped Oscar Wilde. The charity sector knows all about that. Following distressing news that 2005's list of the most complained about advertising was charity-free, pundits were left asking how the sector had become so shockingly unshocking.

Controversy has long been a handy tool for charity campaigners, whether with a bag full of dead kittens or a baby with a cockroach in its mouth. Barnardos, Peta, NSPCC, BHF and many others have all sought to shock the public into action, and the Advertising Standards Authority (Asa) lists charity campaigns as some of the most controversial it has dealt with. In their efforts to create the biggest splash, charities have developed a hard-hitting approach that is at times gruesome, offensive, violent or disturbing - but always impossible to ignore.

The problem with shock is that it is subject to the law of diminishing returns. The more you do it, the more predictable it becomes. The last few years have therefore seen charities almost trying to outdo each other. The British Heart Foundation had fat dripping from arteries, Rethink put Churchill into a straightjacket, Fathers4Justice has shocked its way into the headlines and Barnardos has become a national institution for controversy. It almost appeared that the measure of campaign success was how many complaints the Asa received.

Perhaps this is not surprising. When a campaign hits the headlines, it generates free media and public debate. Many charity issues are in themselves controversial, so how better to cut through apathy and ignorance than with a campaign that pulls no punches. If Mrs Outraged from Cleethorps is left spluttering over her breakfast cereal, then so be it. The danger, however, is when campaigns become predictably controversial, assaulting the public with disturbing images that, paradoxically, shock us into apathy, not action.

Debate over whether the sector is becoming more cautious is, however, a red herring. The real question is whether these tactics even work. The case study of traditional shock campaigns is fairly straightforward: assault your public with the mental equivalent of a frying pan. This has certainly been effective in the past, but the evidence is that, after a while, the public learns to duck. Mailings go unopened, ads go unwatched and controversy ends up backfiring.

Until recently, the answer was to bring out ever bigger frying pans but now, without wishing to push the kitchen metaphor too far, one wonders if we need a new range of utensils.

On its own, shock is fairly one-dimensional. But when combined with intrigue, humour and seduction, when the viewer is left wanting to find out more rather than turn away, charities succeed in getting people thinking. Amnesty's "Guns for Sale" campaign, Greenpeace's film targeting SUV drivers, and the Prostate Cancer Charity's radio spots with Ricky Gervais are all examples of campaigns driven by humour and surprise, each of which has created a more good-natured controversy. They are also campaigns whose success has gone viral, a product of the YouTube generation where the public helps get the message out in a flurry of forwarded emails.

This new dynamic reflects a more interesting and creative approach to capturing the public's attention. Charities must still know how to press the shock button, but they must understand that it doesn't take long before this alone becomes rather tedious. The issue is not whether charities should be more cautious but how they can keep up with a shock-worn public that, quite literally, has seen it all. The answer is not to keep turning up the voltage but to bring greater imagination, wit and intelligence to their campaigns.

Joshua Blackburn is creative director at the charity communications agency Provokateur (www.provokateur.com)

Barnardos. Heroin Baby.

By Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2002/dec/03/advertising.society

Nebel says: "My basic mission was to help make Barnardo's stand out in a crowded market and explain the enormous range of support and help it gives to desperate families.
"Our mission was to rebrand Barnardo's and tell people that it was no longer about orphanages. Every year Barnardo's helps 115,000 underprivileged children.
"I believe the charity's willingness to embrace modern marketing and fundraising methods has been an invaluable part in the Barnardo's success story."


An exert from the Guardian article "Barnardo's wins top ad prize" by Claire Cozens
Tuesday 3 December 2002 15.03 GMT

An earlier ad, featuring a baby injecting heroin, was banned by the advertising standards authority. But the charity capitalised on the setback by commissioning a new "happy baby" image, captioned, "The ad we wish we could have run".

Barnardos. Silver Spoons.

By Bartle Bogle Hegarty.


Article from The Guardian by Claire Cozens
Wednesday 12 November 2003 14.01 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/12/childrensservices.advertising1

Dozens of people have contacted the advertising watchdog to complain about Barnardo's new campaign just hours after the shock image of a newborn baby with a cockroach in its mouth first appeared.

The Advertising Standards Authority said it had already received 30 complaints about the advert, which appeared in some tabloid newspapers this morning.
It showed a full-page image of a newborn baby with a hospital tag around its wrist and a large cockroach crawling out of its mouth. The strapline read, "There are no silver spoons for children born into poverty".
Other ads in the campaign feature a baby with a syringe, and one with a bottle of methylated spirits poking out of its mouth.

The children's charity has a history of courting controversy, most famously when it used images of a 10-month-old baby injecting heroin in a press campaign.
The Committee on Advertising Practice, which advises advertisers on the industry's code of conduct, took the rare step of writing to newspaper editors to advise them the image could contravene its taste and decency guidelines.

But Andrew Nebel, the director of marketing and communications for Barnardo's, insisted the charity's shock tactics were justified and said it had worked closely with the regulator in preparing its campaign.

"Barnardo's work involves dealing with shocking issues. This latest campaign in particular deals with child poverty, which the public is almost in denial about. We needed to overcome public apathy about poverty in Britain," he said.

"We don't have much money to spend, so we are looking for high levels of awareness from a relatively small campaign."

Mr Nebel said some complaints were inevitable and compared the strategy to "Bob Geldof's famous four-letter exhortation", which galvanised the public into action over the famine in Ethiopia.
The last Barnardo's campaign, which showed images of adult suicides and tragic deaths with the line "saving children from a living death", attracted around 20 complaints but was cleared by the ASA.

The latest campaign is aimed at raising awareness of child poverty and coincides with new government figures showing one in three children in Britain, and nearly half of all London children, now live in poverty.

ASA TV Broadcast Codes - PERSONAL DISTRESS

6.4 Personal distress

Advertisements must not, without good reason, contain material which is likely to cause serious distress to significant numbers of viewers

Notes:

(1) Any appeal to fear should be justified and proportionate. Only mild material is likely to be acceptable in demonstrating, for example, the risks in not buying life insurance. More disturbing material might be acceptable in, for example, road safety advertising. See also 8.2.11(a) (re Medicines etc) and 10.14 (re Doctrinal Advertising).

(2) Scenarios which might be distressing reminders of tragic personal experiences for significant numbers of viewers should be carefully judged. For example, at any given time, many viewers will be recently bereaved.

ASA TV Broadcast Codes - VIOLENCE AND CRUELTY

6.2 Violence and cruelty

(a) Advertisements must not encourage or condone violence or cruelty

(b) Gratuitous and realistic portrayals of cruel or irresponsible treatment of people or animals are not acceptable

Notes to 6.2:

(1) Careful judgements are needed in this area. ‘Theatrical’ violence (for example, the mayhem common in action/adventure films) is generally acceptable, as is violence which has a stylised ‘cartoon’ or slapstick quality. Problems are more likely to arise where the violence seems to take place in everyday life and to involve ordinary people. However, care should be taken to avoid giving young viewers the impression that copying wrestling, martial arts etc would be safe, harmless fun.

(2) Advertisements must not appear to condone people using violence or aggression to get their own way in everyday life.

(3) Jokes about or involving violence require care and will usually need to be distanced from everyday life by being, for example, in cartoon form.

(4) Scenes which would otherwise be inappropriate may be acceptable to the audience in, for example, charity advertising or newsreel footage in advertisements for news media.

(5) Timing restrictions are necessary for advertising featuring violence. See 7.4.6 (Distress) and 7.4.7 (Scheduling) below.

ASA TV Broadcast Codes - OFFENCE

6.1 Offence

Advertisements must not cause serious or widespread offence against generally accepted moral, social or cultural standards, or offend against public feeling

Notes:

(1) Although no list can be exhaustive, and values evolve over time, society has shared standards in areas such as:

(a) the portrayal of death, injury, violence (particularly sexual violence), cruelty or misfortune

(b) respect for the interests and dignity of minorities

(c) respect for spiritual beliefs, rites, sacred images etc

(d) sex and nudity, and the use of offensive language.

(2) The ASA does not judge cases simply, or even primarily, on the number of complaints received. It makes judgements about the likelihood of widespread offence as well as taking into account the possibility of deep, usually unintentional, offence to sections of the audience which have particular vulnerabilities.

(3) Particular circumstances can result in otherwise unobjectionable material causing offence. For example, a joke may cease to be acceptable if it seems to refer to a recent tragedy or if it appears close to a programme about a serious, related issue. On the other hand, if material might be on the edge of acceptability for a general audience but would be perfectly acceptable to, for example, young adults, careful scheduling in ‘youth’ programmes may be sufficient to avoid causing offence.
(4) Whilst commercials for media products such as CDs and videos must not mislead about their content, any extracts from the products should not cause offence.

ASA - Non-Broadcast Advertising Codes - CHILDREN

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/ShowCode.htm?clause_id=1731

CHILDREN

47.1 For the purposes of the Code, a child is someone under 16. The way in which children perceive and react to marketing communications is influenced by their age, experience and the context in which the message is delivered; marketing communications that are acceptable for young teenagers will not necessarily be acceptable for young children. The ASA will take these factors into account when assessing marketing communications.

47.2 Marketing communications addressed to, targeted at or featuring children should contain nothing that is likely to result in their physical, mental or moral harm:

c) they should not be shown using or in close proximity to dangerous substances or equipment without direct adult supervision. Examples include matches, petrol, certain medicines and household substances as well as certain electrical appliances and machinery, including agricultural equipment

ASA - Non-Broadcast Advertising Codes - FEAR AND DISTRESS

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/ShowCode.htm?clause_id=1506

FEAR AND DISTRESS

9.1 No marketing communication should cause fear or distress without good reason. Marketers should not use shocking claims or images merely to attract attention.

ASA - Non-Broadcast Advertising Codes - DECENCY

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/ShowCode.htm?clause_id=1496

DECENCY

(ie avoiding serious or widespread offence)

5.1 Marketing communications should contain nothing that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Particular care should be taken to avoid causing offence on the grounds of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability. Compliance with the Code will be judged on the context, medium, audience, product and prevailing standards of decency.

5.2 Marketing communications may be distasteful without necessarily conflicting with 5.1 above. Marketers are urged to consider public sensitivities before using potentially offensive material.

Response to NHS fish hook anti-smoking ads

Taken from a blog written on Saturday 13 January 2007

http://www.littlemanwhatnow.com/2007/01/disgraceful-nhs-anti-smoking-advert.html


Disgraceful NHS Anti-Smoking Advert

by Charles Pooter

I was on my way to the barbers this morning when I saw this monstrosity displayed on a huge billboard in my neighbourhood:

No doubt there are a bunch of coke-snorting wankers in some Soho ad agency who are congratulating themselves for getting this shocking and "boundary-pushing" ad on the streets. Well congratulations to them and to Titan for inflicting this brutal image on people whose surroundings are often grim enough already. And congratulations to Caroline Flint, the Health Minister who launched the campaign:

These adverts highlight the controlling message of tobacco. We know 70% of smokers would like to give up.

Well Caroline, I'm more worried about the "controlling message" of your Government, who seem intent on bullying people with violent and disturbing imagery. How many of these ads are going up in your own constituency? Would you like to leave your house and see that every day? No doubt you'd be the first one moaning if Benetton put up "hard-hitting" billboards near primary schools, so why is it OK for the NHS to do so? Where is your evidence that this kind of campaign even works?

by Charles Pooter at 6:31 PM

Daily Mail article on NHS ads.

The gist of piece found in the Daily Mail about the "shocking" anti smoking fish hook ads. I wish I knew which ad agency came up with it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-455106/Anti-smoking-advert-frightening.html

Anti-smoking advert 'is too frightening' By SEAN POULTER Last updated at 20:24 15 May 2007

A health campaign which showed smokers being snatched by fish hooks in their mouths has been criticised for frightening children. The Advertising Standards Authority received 744 complaints about the Department of Health TV commercials and posters. A TV advert showed a woman folding clothes while a child watched TV. The next second the woman was dragged from the room by a fish hook attached to a wire.

The advertisements and posters for the Department of Health campaign are said to have shocked and frightened children.

A man walking down a street was also seen being dragged along the ground and over a car bonnet by a hook and wire into a shop selling cigarettes. The aim was to demonstrate the addiction to tobacco and highlight a Government campaign to help smokers kick the habit.
A series of billboard posters showed smokers with pained expressions and a taught wire pulling on hooks embedded above their lips.

The campaign attracted the highest number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority for two years. Today, the authority criticises the handling of the Government-health initiative.
The official watchdog said most of those who complained considered the images were "offensive, frightening and distressing", particularly to children.

It ruled that the commercials cannot be shown during children or family viewing times. It seems the posters will be banned outright.

The Department of Health said the adverts were designed to confront smokers with the controlling nature of their addiction and were not meant merely to attract attention or to be gratuitous.