As opposed to all those rich gay homeless people? 
Well, it looks like they’re back to their old tactics again. I saw another ad (which I’d seen before, just forgot about) where two guys are riding around in an ice cream truck preaching to little kids. It’s wrong to sell cigs out of an ice cream truck (my guess is parents of screaming kids yelling for ice cream could use a smoke), but it’s okay to preach to little children by luring them in. The whole ad just reminds me of the one where the teens are riding around in the van at night through the neighborhood preaching their shit.
I wonder how many of these teens smoke pot?
ironically, a friend of mine was wandering around new york and they were shooting some truth ad and he said that all of the sanctimonious pricks who make those commercials were smoking… i laughed my ass off at that. and then i enjoyed a cigarette… mmm… flavor country 
Far more effective were the billboards showing two Marlboro-esque cowboys riding on the range together. One of 'em is quoted as saying, “I miss my lung, Bob.”
I think the bottom line is that these Truth.com ads are incredibly ineffective. They all revolve around statistics that are likely not the complete “truth” themselves and random quotes from tobacco execs that are either irrelevant or probably taken completely out of context. Just a couple minutes ago, I saw the one with the teens in the van going around the neighborhood admiring the exec’s houses and playing that obnoxious self help tape. People are well informed now, they know the dangers of smoking as it states it right on the package. If there is still such a profitable market in selling tobacco then why not get involved? While it may have once been the tobacco companies’ fault as they led people to believe cigarettes were perfectly healthy, that no longer is the case. To try to make these execs look bad because the made money off the stupidity of other people… well isn’t that what most professions profit from?
No, you’re not, and whatever it is, I take a dozen.
And any product labelled, New, Improved “Eat Some Protein, You Skanky Little Anorectic” goes straight into the shopping cart.
Regards,
Shodan
Huh. And you can prove this how?
The American Journal of Public Health published a peer reviewed study (see here which suggests just the opposite…
I suppose that the content and style of the Truth ads are fair game for debate. Saying that they are “ineffective” is at best, unprovable…and at worst flat out wrong.
What, you want to let teenagers determine whether it’s effective or not, just because they’re the target audience? What a concept!
Seriously, though, the results of the study are ambiguous. If the aim of the campaign is to influence opinions about tobacco companies, the results suggest it has been effective. But when the teens were asked whether the teens say they plan to begin smoking or not, the results were statistically insignificant.
I think the truth add people’s thinking is this:
Teens don’t listen to “it’s bad for you” arguments
But they do respond to lying/hypocracy
so they have statements that tobacco execs say they don’t target kids, but then show internal memos that say they do “using bright colored pacakaging might attact teens”
IMHO this is a decent argument. Whether the ads work for 30-year-olds is moot. (I like some ads, annoyed by others)
Brian
Ok, maybe it isnt the bottom line, but it is the opinion of myself, being a 17 year old teenager, and literally every person I have ever talked to about it.
SonofArizona - I have a question for you.
Assuming that I do NOT want you to start smoking, and I have an advertising budget to try to achieve my goal, what do you think my approach should be?
I know that the studies that have been done have suggested that teenagers will not respond well to warnings about their future health. My understanding has been that N9IWP’s point about hypocrisy, and teenagers not wanting to be tricked into a choice by large corporations has been the tactic that the Truth ads are using. But you suggest that this is also ineffective. So in the opinion of your 17-year-old self and the people you talk to, what kind of campaign would work to prevent you from smoking?
Whats the hypocrisy? One ad is about a tobacco executive saying that some women might prefer a smaller baby. The ad even proves this is true, by the five votes for the smaller baby. Another ad is about some tobacco executive making a insulting comment grouping together gays and homeless people in project scum (i think thats what it was). Ok fine, but I doubt many teenagers are going to be offended by that. And the last one was the one with the van going around in that neighborhood… ok so the tobacco executives are rich. If there is demand, theres a profit to be made, somebody is going to do it if not them. Wheres this hypocrisy you are talking about?
What would I put in an ad? How about a campaign involving hidden cameras on a guy who is going around smoking a cigarette and people’s REAL reactions to him. Restaurant and store owners kicking him out, people telling him to go away, making rude comments, dirty looks, coughing obnoxiously, etc, etc. Make the point how in today’s world smoking is not only not healthy but it has become socially unacceptable and in some places illegal.
SonOfArizona, thanks for responding to my question. Do you think that an ad like one you suggest would have to show teenage smokers being treated badly in order for teenagers to relate to it, or would reactions to any smokers work?
It sounds like you aren’t responding at all to the premise of the Truth ads that just seeing the nasty stuff the tobacco companies do – targeting gays and homeless, disregarding the potential health effects, etc. – will convince young people not to smoke.
Hmm… well the way I would do it… the hidden camera would be on the smoker’s person, so you wouldn’t even know if the smoker was old, young, male, or female. The commercial’s message is centered around the responses to the smoking. The way I see it, knowing any information about the smoker might distract from this message.
I don’t think many teenagers care about all that. Teenagers by nature, for the most part are selfish. Unless that particular teenager is gay or homeless, he/she probably isn’t going to be offended by the tobacco companys’ resentment towards those groups. (Although I do find it kinda humorous that they grouped them together as it seems completely random) As for the companys’ disregarding potential health effects… well they don’t do it anymore, and most teenagers, being selfish, don’t care about what the tobacco giants did to other people decades ago.
Yea its horrible the way we think… but… eh… im off to do something more exciting.
I’m guessing if someone ran ads like that…we would get just as many people ridiculing those ads as well…with the usual gang of folks saying “that ad actually convinced me to try smoking!!”.
FWIW…many if not all of the Truth ads (and similar ones like the Just Eliminate Lies campaign in my home state)
were designed by teens working with ad agencies.
I think part of the problem with the ad campaign as a whole is that it’s not immediately clear what the purpose of it is. At first you believe it’s an anti-smoking campaign, but eventually you realize it’s just an anti-tobacco company smear campaign. And that’s what I find annoying about them: it’s as if they’re going for this whole underdog anti-establishment thing where we kids of the MTV generation band together and Stick It To The Man and spread The Truth! But they don’t have my best interests at heart, so why do I care?
Forgive me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t homeless poeple be the worst possible demographic to target?
And homeless people as well.:smack:
Isn’t The Truth the PSA shell company that the tobacco companies were forced to found by the state lawsuit settlements?
If so, the ineffectiveness and lameness of the ads would seem to be possibly deliberate…
I agree with whoever said that the most effective anti-teen-smoking ads would involve real-world social reactions to smokers. An ad that showed someone getting up from their workstation and going out into the rain, snow, wind or cold to feed their addiction, or showed the lepers’-corner smoking section (that single dimly-lit table back by the kitchen, directly under the outside exhaust intake) of a nice diner or restaurant, would seem to be pretty effective. Teenagers care more about social stigma and ostracization than about threats to future health…remember, they’re immortal and invulnerable.