The disturbing ones are the most effective.
This one, using the Smurfs, is very disturbing. And yes, it was made with the permission of Peyo, the creator of the Smurfs.
How about some gross-out then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YjrkBYDDQM - Australian anti-smoking ad featuring a woman that looks like she’s going to croak any second now. They’ve recently started showing it here as part of a campaign where students were asked to choose the most disturbing ad. I want to puke every time I see it.
All of these Canadian workplace safety ones are pretty disturbing. Especially the boiling water one.
When I read the thread title, one video immediately came to mind - the Emma Thompson Human Trafficking PSA. It’s probably NSFW, although it’s not explicit. It focuses on the human sex trade, though, so the subject alone wouldn’t be appropriate for some places.
She said ‘deep fryer’, so I assume it was 350º oil.
I’ve looked on YouTube for the PSA where people sing “this little light of mine” in the dark and then shine a flashlight on themselves from below, it’s disturbing in a Burger King King sense. Anyone have a link or am i hallucinating it?
Goddammit, it’s like they’re TRYING to give me anorexia.
Actual title of that video: ***Avatar ***in thirty seconds.
I see nothing disturbing about that PSA whatsodamever.
Not really disturbing, since it has Denis Leary in it, but the idea is there:
The late Yul Brynner taped what I thought was a chilling anti-smoking PSA to be aired after his death.
It contains no special effects whatsoever, just a sincere plea: “Now that I’m gone, I tell you: Don’t smoke, whatever you do, just don’t smoke.”
I wish this could be shown in the states; probably wouldn’t be since more people would object to the use of “asshole” than the drunk driving! 
Odd, given Peyo died in '92 and that ad came out in 2005, IIRC.
That one appears to be about UNICEF, but wasn’t there some flap a few years ago when Smurfs-getting-bombed was used as propaganda to make the Dutch support the EU constitution? Or is it the same ad and I’m making it up?
Interesting in that if you look at the sidebar, it says this was controversial because…the Grim Reapers were thought to symbolize gay men. Never would have occurred to me.
That was pretty scary by itself, but the comments…man, the comments section. The comments section. Is a voluminous pile of filthy misogyny and depressing ‘irony’…it ew.
That one wins, hands down. I seriously just about vomited my breakfast watching that.
As soon as I saw the thread title, that’s the one I thought of…
Disturbing, yet effective; just like our cigarette package photos