On MTV this week, I have seen the truth.com ads a bunch, actually now I guess they are called 'whudafxup ', you know the ads where the guy with the weird hair seeks treatment for jogging and M&M addictions.
Anyway, I was wondering what people thought of them and if truth and other similar campaigns are effective? Obviously, fewer people in the US seem to be smoking and more and more places are banning smoking in bars and resaurants. Anyway, just one of my random thoughts for a Friday afternoon.
I doubt it. I think smoking is a vile habit, but the ads usually make me want to go out and pick up some cigarettes out of sheer spite. I bet I’m not alone.
Wow, so you’re saying you don’t like the ads, is that what I’m hearing.
I agree with you that smoking is gross, but those ads don’t bother me. If somebody were to get in my face and be annyoing about it that would piss me off, but the points they bring up in those ads are actually pretty crazy, I mean the quotes they use from tobacco executives. Some pretty shady stuff if you ask me.
I would think these ads ad to the general view that more people have that smoking is bad for you and gross. That probablby has something to do with fewer people smoking. I could be wrong though.
Most anti-smoking campaigns make me want to have a cigarette.
I understand that it’s bad for me. I understand that the campaigns are really to keep people from starting. I’m cool with that, and I applaud the intent. It’s not a nice habit, and the less people who start, the better.
But still, every time I even see the word “truth” now, I want a cigarette. It comes from the same place deep inside that says “Am I paying you for medical advice? Did you give birth to me? If the answer to both of these questions is no, then get out of my face.”
They’re probably more effective to keep people from starting. Smokers and former smokers are probably too defensive about being told what to do.
I doubt they have any impact. If they appear to, it’s likely more due to the increasing taxes and anti-smoking legislation than any ad campaigns. Some campaigns even tend to backfire. In Canada the government mandated a number of years back that 50% of the front and back cover of a pack of smokes had to contain an anti-smoking message of Heath Canada’s choice from a selection of ads they had done up. The ads themselves contained an image depicting or characterising the text printed next to it. (A message about heart disease abutting the image of a diseased heart, a message of impotence beside an image of a “limp” cigarette, etc.)
The kids? They loved 'em. Traded 'em like cards. Grossed people out with them. Some people developed favourites, would even ask specifically for packs with their favourite image on it. (Some people still do) Wonderful use of taxpayer dollars right there.
Good call, that likely applies to most people not just smokers who don’t like being told what to do. Although none of the ads directly tell people not to smoke or to quit they just talk about how some tobacco company exec said drinking milk is worse than smoking, something to that affect.
Everyone in my family smokes. When my mom, cousin, boyfriend and myself went to Warped Tour last summer (The Offspring, my favorite band, and the Transplants, my boyfriend’s favorite band, were playing, or else you couldn’t have caught us dead there) we passed the TruthBooth and every single one of us had to stop and light a cigarette: one, because of sheer perversity, and two, because the Truth logo has become completely linked in our minds with the tobacco craving.
Most of my non-smoker friends think they’re stupid, and continue not smoking because 1) they think smoking is gross, or 2) it’s too expensive.
~Tasha
Ahh, this is the one tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory that I buy into – just about every single anti-smoking campaign is in some way funded by the tobacco industry.
Even though big tobacco was forced to pony up the dough for thetruth.com via the Global Tobacco Settlement, they were thrilled to do so. Everything thetruth.com does is very specifically designed to be as pro-smoking as possible, while still maintaining the appearance of being anti-smoking. Have you ever known as smoker who didn’t want a “fuck you” smoke as a reaction to their ads?
Every mass-market mention of smoking puts a big smile on a tobacco exec’s face – this is one instance where there really is no such thing as bad publicity. Nothing makes big tobacco happier than ads for smoking cessation products, or the meme about tobacco being more addicitive than herion. Both reinforce the idea that giving up smoking is “one of the hardest things a person can do”, when in fact nicotine is only very mildly physically addicting. I know if I were selling a product like that, I’d be very happy anytime the idea that giving up my product was difficult to do.
So to sum up, no, anti-smoking campaigns don’t work. They just make smokers go “oh yeah…I could go for one 'o them right about now…”
Anti-smoking campaigns work. People smoke less now than before. It would be hard to argue this is a coincidence.
You can point at a particular ad, or campaign, and say it’s terrible. But these campains have been happening for 40 years or so, and collectively they have had a very big impact.
See my recent thread titled “For every cigarette you don’t smoke, I’m going to smoke three”, about how much I hate the truth.com ads that insult my intelligence. Sorry, since I’m a smoker, I’m too lazy to get up and find a link.
Well, yes, sort of. Mostly I think they are stupid and insulting. I’m not going to start smoking because of some stupid ad, but if the companies are trying to make us say “Fuck you” to the ads then they’re succeeding, and I’ve never even smoked!
Obviously I was kidding and understand your point. While I have heard that several times from other people, I never had the same reaction, never saw the ads as condescending or insulting.
CynicalGabe, I’ll have to check out your thread, interesting title. IMO, the ads don’t seem to insult anyone’s intelligence just present the info in an amusing way as opposed to some scientist or docotr dtanding there telling you what smoke does to you or some lawyer analysiizng the stupid statments of tobacco company executives.
Boyo Jim, I agree with you that collectively several forces have led to the decline in smoking.
I disagree. All their ads do is say "look at the tobacco companies! they lied to us! they think we are all stupid! did you know that they call cancer “zephyr”? aren’t they evil!!:
I find the commercials insulting, as well as stupid and boring. I already knew cigarettes were bad for me, and that tobacco companies are run by the spawn of Satan. Repeating this to me as though it is some kind of new information is a waste of time. Therefore, I smoke out of spite.
Sure showed them fuckers!
We’ve just had a smoking ban in pubs come into law here. TBH it’s been fine because the weather has been fine, and it’s turned out to be a good way for people to meet other people. The three pubs I know well enough to know how their business is haven’t had a downturn in business, but no real upturn either.
One thing that I have noticed though: folks have taken the opportunity to sit or stand outside and smoke joints a lot more openly. Before if anyone fancied a spliff they would wander away outside (well away from the premises), but now it seems that if all the smokers are outside, then the smokers are outside. Dunno how long this trend will last before the idiot health-nazis try and stop it, but still.
What I did at the Warped Tour a few years ago was to go get as much free shit off of them, THEN have a smoke. I really stuck it to the man.
My (non-smoker) roommate pointed out, the tobacco companies must have said, “OK, fine…you can have this money. BUT, the ads have to have the most loser-looking people ever [couldn’t get laid at Burning Man, he clarifies] doing the most obnoxious shit imaginable.”
“If smoking were bad for you, why would it be so Goddamned cool?”
-Said Roommate
Originally Posted by chefjef
Wow, so you’re saying you don’t like the ads, is that what I’m hearing.
That’s very true. When I smoked, all the the anti-smoking ads did was make me more determined to carry on. What finally made me stop was the damage it did to my health. I developed angina and the choice was basically ‘stop smoking or die’. Needless to say, I stopped.