Does anyone else hate those fucking “The Truth” anti-smoking commercials?
They try to make a point by piling up as many simulated dead bodies as die every day from smoking. They claim IIRC that there are “130 poisons” in cigarettes. Obviously I’m not trying to argue that cigarettes are safe or anything, but come on, there may be 130 toxic chemicals in tobacco smoke in trace amounts but the way they phrase it sounds like they’re saying that one square will kill you.
They use misleading statistics, misplace emphasis and overly dramatic langauge to convey their message. This is blatant propaganda.
Public Service announcements should not used to try to brainwash their viewers. Whoever makes the public service ads should present the statistics that reputable studies have found in a straightforward and clear manner. Villifying smokers is not the way to keep kids from smoking. Presenting them with the real reasons not to smoke, such as the health risks, the expense of always needing to buy cigarettes, etc so that they can make the intelligent and informed decision not to smoke is what is most important.
I hate those fucking commercials. I smoke, I knows it’s not good for me, but, lay off! I don’t need it ramed down my throat. Then my kids start ragging me and I have to smoke more! Damn stupid commercials!
I’m a non-smoker and don’t like the habit in the least. It’s addictive, unhealthy and expensive, and in my opinion all smokers should quit. Having said that, I’ll second that emotion. I, too, hate those damned annoying and self-righteous commercials. Only, I have to disagree with you that the Truth campaign (it’s all I can do to restrain myself from putting that in quotation marks) can be described as “vilifying smokers”. I kid of wish it did; at least that would place the blame where it belongs – on personal choice . Rather, these advertisements are crude left-wing agitprop, ascribing to evil, corporate “Big Tobacco” all the sufferings of smokers. Big Tobacco, huh? Would it be a healthier decision, then, to smoke only hand-rolled cardamom bidis made by Andaman Islands midgets than to get your cigarettes from big, bad Philip Morris?
I object to them because they’re sanctimonious and worse, they probably have the direct opposite effect of discouraging smoking. Hell, I’m an adult smoker–trying to quit, so lay off, now–and those commericals make me want to light up just from contrariness. I wonder how many of the “impressionable young people” these ads supposedly target are tempted to start smoking, just in resentment from being patronized.
I have not seen the commercial in question. I agree that if one has truth on one’s side (e.g. smoking will kill you) one need not descend to exaggeration, sanctimony, hysteria, or pontificating.
I’m horribly opposed to smoking. That being said, I’m also horribly opposed to those ads, just because they’re so preachy and moralistic. I did like the one with the girls and the face crean (which I’m not even sure if it was theirs) The 3 girls are having a sleep over, and they’re trying on a face cream, and the head of one of them blows up, and then there’s a voiceover saying, "Why use a product that kills 1 out of 3 people who use it. If they created that ad, I liked it, but, other than that, their ads are stupid.
It’s also a little…ironic, that they’re trying to portray themselves as rebellious iconoclasts, when their funding all comes from that foundation set up with money from the tobacco companies when they lost the lawsuits.
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*Originally posted by adam420 *
**Does anyone else hate those fucking “The Truth” anti-smoking commercials? **
[QUOTE]
Apparently a better question would be does any body like them. Or does anybody not hate them. I don’t hate them.
**
Stuff the cigarette companies would never dream of resorting to.
If you have truth on your side you don’t need to resort to propaganda? Since when? Cigarette ads are all about appealing to the emotions. Being sexy, being accepted, being “alive”. Which is why they work so well with teenagers, none of whom think they’re going to die anyway.
I don’t like them much, but they’re better, and I bet more effective than the disingenious “PSAs” sponsered by Phillp Morris. Them I hate.
The U.S. resorts to propaganda when we are at war. Some might argue that its neccessary, to keep up morale. But maybe propaganda, even the “good” kind, will always come back to bite you in the ass.
Ok. Ok. I knew if I said anything in favor of propaganda I would hate myself in the morning. Or later the same afternoon.
I don’t like resorting to propaganda. But can “truth” (like statistic that cigarettes cause cance presented to 16 year olds who cannot conceive of their own death) really defeat an appeal to the emotions (like the propaganda cigarette companies use)?
When is the use of propaganda (which implies distortion and emotionalism) justitfied? Can, or should you fight propaganda with propaganda? You’re right this is a good GD topic.
Still, I have a hard time hating the “Truth” ads more than all the distorted bullshit commercials etc. generally present me with.
I hate the Truth because they try to appeal to kids by being obnoxious assholes. They harrass a poor guy behind a convenience store counter because the store has cigarette ads at eye-level for toddlers. They drive through a neighborhood (supposedly the people who live there work for “Big Tobacco”) with a loud speaker at an hour of the night where clearly families have the right to expect some peace and quiet.
That’s not subversive, kids. That’s acting like a bunch of little shits.
Who am to I say that the right sort of propaganda, properly handled, is never justified? I’m not prepared to make such a sweeping statement. But there will be consequences.
Perhaps the biggest influence on teenagers is other teenagers. This is more like it: ads with teen-age girls saying they’d never kiss a boy who reeked of cigarette smoke, or who say that smoking is just not cool anymore, and meaning it. I think I’ve seen such ads. I remember in my high school they had a couple of ex-cons come in to talk to us about drugs. It wasn’t quite propaganda, but no kid in that assembly of middle to upper middle class teenagers could possibly identify with them. “I’ll never be like that” was the general comment. If the speaker had been some other middle-class kid with drug problems, perhaps it would have been different. I don’t know. But I don’t think that the anti-smoking lobby should resort to propaganda. As shown in some of the above posts, it can create a backlash. I remember when I heard a Mothers Against Drunk Driving thing that they made us go to when I was in the military. It was so over the top that I immediately wanted to get hammered and go for a spin.
I hate to admit it because I loathe these commercials, but they constitute one of the most brilliant ad campaigns I’ve seen.
There are two main options for creating a customer base: convince potential clients that your product is the best or that your competitors’ product is worse than yours.
In this case, tobacco companies simply rearranged their ad strategy and reallocated funding. With the “Truth” campaign, big tobacco has kept its end of the bargain in funding anti-smoking initiatives to minors.
At the same time, it has alienated the target audience, thus glamourizing smoking to the under-21 set; quite possibly more successsfully than any of their cartoon characters could have done.
Case in point - How many of you were ever driven to chain smoke by the camel?
As a message board poster, the most offensive commercial the the Truth ever subjected me to featured some snotty punk responding to a message board post from there boards on national television. Oooh, there’s a fair debate… the poor son of a bitch who got picked on never gets a chance to argue with his opponents. That’s so morally superior. I’m glad a bunch of teenage punks are out there being assholes… there aren’t enough of those.
I agree with scratch1300 upon reading his reply, they really don’t villify smokers, they villify “Big Tobacco”…
After perusing their website (www.thetruth.com) I really became aggravated at how misplaced their blame was. They have a “pissed-off libs” generator that allows you to enter words a la “Mad Libs” and create a form letter to send to Tobacco Executives via email.
It seems to me if that’s the question you’re asking as an anti-smoking crusader you’ve missed the point entirely. Cigarette manufacturers are in business, and as such are trying to maximize their profits. They supply a demand that’s been there since before cigarette advertisements. While it’s not socially acceptable to push cigarettes to kids with cartoon camels, it sure as hell is profitable. If there were no more big tobacco companies, would people stop smoking, or would kids stop taking up smoking? No, of course not. There’s plenty of ways to make a dollar out there, and they chose a way that happened to kill people. Apparantly, to them, it was worth it all the [blanks], just like it was worth for the smoker who decided to pick up smoking.
As has already been pointed it out, it all comes back to personal choice. You knew when you started smoking that sucking down burning plant matter wasn’t good for you. You knew when you eventually developed a cough and got winded climbing a flight of stairs it wasn’t good for you. But that was your choice. It’s not the drug dealer’s fault that you got hooked. It’s not that I want to villify smokers by any means, I personally think if they want to smoke it’s their business. However, I dislike the fact that these commercials try to put the blame on the tobacco companies. Fucking communists…
Also, betenoir, in response to
I’m not looking for a debate, I was just trying to express how angry they make me, so I don’t exactly understand how it’s apparant that I should ask if anyone likes them.
I am a virulent non-smoker, but I am afraid that thetruth is not helping the cause to eradicate smoking. They overreach the audience by trying to be hip. The bodybags are getting very tiresome, which is very bad because that is wht you remember from these commercials.
We have people here saying that they would chain smoke after watching one of these commercials due to the mental anguish the commercial caused them, or something to that effect. While I agree that the commercials don’t appeal to everyone, they are effective for specific uses. Most of the posters have all agreed with the OP, while there is variety among the posters in smoking preference. I quit smoking about 2 1/2 years ago, after watching a nasty special on PBS about smoking. The blank lung was what did it, along with the trail of black slime it left as it was dragged across the table.
They say it like that to make a point. There may be a trace amount of the chemical in each cigarrete, but this adds up. Most smokers I know smoke about a pack a day, which ends up with 20 trace amounts of each toxic chemical everyday. Theses chemicals are not naturally occurring in the tobacco, they are added by the tobacco companies to make cigarettes more appealling and addictive. So, to answer Scratch, it might be healthier for you, if similar filters were used. There is a brand of cigarretes, the name escapes me at the moment, that doesn’t add chemicals to their tobacco. Blue package, native american on the front, if anyone knows what I’m talking about. From studies I’ve seen, they are not as bad for you as the average cigarrete.
Ok, I’ve said my piece, just to try to even the arguement, but I don’t like the commercials, or any commercial for that matter, so I won’t defend them too much.
I don’t smoke, but I want to… I have puffed a few casually when out with smokers, and know I could get addicted in a second. So I suppose I am one of the supposed decision-makers they are trying to reach, even tho I’m way over the teen years.
With that said, those commercials do NOTHING to keep me from wanting to smoke. What they do do is piss me the hell off, because I have relatives that have died recently from different types of cancer… some smoked, some did not. But seeing body bags hefted and dropped doesn’t do anything but make me depressed, and angry.
People now KNOW smoking is bad for them. It’s right on the little package. This knowledge is a bit like people who eat too much fat and know it could clog their arteries and kill them, but they keep on eating hamburgers and hot dogs and pizza and butter, etc., because they like it.
Smokers smoke not only because they are addicted, but because they like to. I like to. I’m not addicted yet – I just like to do it. That is one reason why people start… they try it, they like it.
I think. I’m not an expert, or even an amateur in smoker’s psychology. Anyway, I hate those advertisements, and they don’t influence my feelings toward smoking at all, except to think that there are some non-smoking assholes.
::shudder:: I’ve had the brand you’re referring to (I can’t recall the name either) and they’re VILE! But there is another brand, white package with a green butterfly on the front that are herbal cigarettes that are not only not as bad, but even smell good burning. Can’t recall the name of THOSE either. :: sigh ::