Wow! I can’t believe I just saw this ad! It’s too funny/irresponsible! Oh my God!
So what I’m referring to is a local New York City commercial playing on NY1 (the NYC news channel) for a Columbia University study on cocaine addicts, presumably for some new method for quitting the drug or something. Or maybe it’s just to do an anthropological study for what type of person is more likely to be/get addicted to cocaine. Anyway, it’s not what it’s an ad for that’s of note here, but rather, how they go about it; and that’s unbelievable!
Okay, so here’s what the ad is: Some concerned-sounding male voice says something like (I’m paraphrasing because I was too dumbstruck by this ad to focus on the exact wording of the voice-over, as you’ll see, because the visuals they were using had me aghast in slack-jawed amazement!): “Are you addicted to cocaine? Have you tried to quit time and time again but somehow never managed to stay clean? There is a new study being conducted at Columbia University for cocaine-addicted blah blah blah, yadda yadda…” And while this voice is speaking, what they show on the screen is the video image of a huge pile of cocaine on a black piece of glass in close-up, with a razor blade cutting it up and forming it into lines, and then a straw descends from the top of the screen and snorts the lines up (!). This happens again and again, and then the razor blade cuts the cocaine into these irregular-looking lines that, when the camera zooms out, turn out to spell: “HELP” out of cocaine.
All I can say is, if they were worried that there weren’t enough cocaine addicts out there, this ad will definitely make some reformed ones fall off the wagon and relapse darn quick! How insensitive is that!? They’re making all the former coke-fiends drool like Pavlov’s dogs when they see this ad! I can hear them now: “Wow; that looks good! I’ll just get a little. That’ll be fine, right? I won’t get addicted again…” And the next thing you know, they’ve blown through their whole checking account! What irresponsible jerks these ad guys are who did this ad! Oh, but not to worry: for you see, there’s this study I just heard about at Columbia University that will surely help them all quit again! (Ugh!)
I wish I could find this ad online to show you! You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it yourself! For real!
