I have taken this group’s ads to task before for being ridiculously alarmist propaganda, but that’s not because I’m pro-smoking. No, their earlier ads, like the one where some guy smoking a cigarette down the street from a bus stop causes oxygen masks to fall from the sky and everyone to huddle scared away from the one cigarette twenty feet away outdoors that will kill them immediately, next to a bus stop no less (!), with all those exhaust fumes blasting at them every five minutes. (Bus exhaust will kill you in a closed room pretty quickly, whereas every bar in the country used to be full of cigarette smoke, and it took much longer for people to develop health problems even after daily exposure for years.) So those ads were ridiculous and laughable bullying propaganda, which is something that makes the target audience laugh them off scornfully and actually want to smoke more, just to spite these reactionary politically correct people.
Oh, but this new ad of theirs, with the little kid playing hopscotch on a cell phone video, is really good. It doesn’t exaggerate like crazy to the point where nobody takes it seriously. It’s just really cute, and it asks what moments would you be willing to miss, because smoking shortens people’s lives. Well, that’s true, and I can’t argue with either the claim or the message, and it seems caring rather than bullying. Great job on fixing your approach, guys! This is the kind of message that will actually work with most people, and even smokers. Plus, for parents, it doesn’t just send the message of not wanting to miss out on seeing their kids grow up, it also reminds them that they could die and leave their kids with no support, and I think that thought is what makes many, many irresponsible and self-destructive adults finally get their act together and live responsibly.
Of course, snarky, single smokers will say that they don’t want kids, etc. And others will say that they’d be willing to miss these ads, etc. And yet other jerks like me will point out that life is full of suffering, so we’d be willing to miss that. But then these ads could say that if you think life is full of suffering now, just wait until you have cancer or emphysema, and then you’ll learn what real suffering is.
So you’re on the right track, guys! And I’m very happy to see you moving from reactionary bullying to effective messaging. I’m sure your reactionary stuff was due to your belief and passion, but it just didn’t come off effectively before, because smokers, and people like hunters and gun enthusiasts, are used to being attacked and smeared and bullied and guilt tripped, and they just respond rebelliously to those types of messages. But send a compassionate message they would actually care about, and it will likely be effective, so long as it’s honest and objective, like a gun control ad that shows kids finding their father’s gun and accidentally shooting themselves: those might make them think; because those things do happen, and nobody wants them to, and even the most die-hard gun owner will stop and think about that message. So stick with this and build on it. You’re getting there, and California really is quitting smoking at a very rapid clip. (But all the former smokers will get fat soon, and then you’ll have to form a group making ads about obesity next. Because ex-smokers usually gain weight after they quit. But I guess dying from obesity-related heart disease is better than dying from smoking-related heart disease, right? And diabetes is way better than cancer. Aren’t they?)
Here’s the hopscotch spot:
