Saturday, October 18, 2008

╠ An ad series I don't want to see again ╣



First I must admit I am a coward when it comes to gore etc. The Saw movies unnerved me like you wouldn't believe...well at least the one I watched and then promised to myself to not see any more. So that being said...I haven't actually watched the ad above, I simply watched the start, made sure the Youtube clip had a warning for graphicness and then pasted it here. In fact I doubt it's probably even Australian ^^;

The ad I saw was the bakery one, the girl uses the bread slicer while the boss is on the phone and then boom fingers go flying off. I must admit it did scare me. Before I saw the finger slicing I did however sort of see it coming and then also doubt myself to have been so stupid. However none of that stopped me from being almost horrified.

They are overall quite effective ads, I assume most would see it and then think twice about not asking. However one thing that i believe is that I doubt that if any company were to use this sort of campaign the campaign would be taken down. So by that extent they're abusing their power as a Government approved endeavor. But despite my issue with bending the rules I also believe that it is what they had to do in order to get the message across. People don't want to hear safety messages, so they need to use a punch in the face style approach. It is an important message so most can understand and forgive them for taking such an approach.

This ad campaign adds to the mean world mind view that the media creates by making you think everyone is evil and everything can kill you. To emphasize that to the entire country can be perceived s a negative thing, however while it's saving lives and limbs it's ok...but does this ad open the gate to others to use this sort of advertising?

I stand by that this ad campaign while I do not want to see anything to do with it again will overall do the community good...however if it has opened the gates to other groups using these sorts of methods then I fear the mean world we are heading to.

It may seem ridiculous but there aren't many groups too far from this. Charity groups in particular. If they start using advertising like this to impose guilt onto people to give to help the starving, diseased families in X country and so on, then the viewers with even weaker stomachs than my own may have to boycott TV, not by choice but for mental health.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree ><
While i can still put up with the smoking ads (the ones with the tar and front-up images) these work safe ads have gotten to a point where i'd rather turn away than watch the whole thing.

Which basically, from my point of view, makes the whole thing ineffectual. I preferred the "Would you do this for your work?" or whatever previous ads that they had..

However i *have* cut myself on a bread slicer before :P

Anonymous said...

Charity groups already use the pity / guilt aspect imho, though maybe not so graphically. I think these ads are horribly, horribly effective regardless of whether you turn away or not - just seeing it once is enough to get the image to stick in your head for a very long time.

I feel sorry for anyone who works at a bakery and who probably now fears going to work >.<

Tannie said...

I can understand that. I know I looked around my work to make sure I didn't have any death machines. I certainly won't go within a few metre radius of a bread slicer any time soon.

I agree with the effective from a single viewing though. That's what my most recent post sort of points out. Whether you ignore it or not it doesn't really make it go away at all.