Wow, that kid is so tough and cool, smoking in an army of
demons! What a badass! That’s some good sh!t there, man! I want some! (<This
is the likely response teens will make to seeing this commercial warning of the
dangers of smoking. And that’s the problem with using an approach like this in
an anti-smoking ad: anything that makes smoking look badass or dangerous gets
turned around into a positive by the young people who see it. So as cool as it
is, maybe another approach would work better than making smoking look like
defeating an army of demons in some video game or fantasy movie.)
Don’t get me wrong: I think this ad is super cool; the
problem is that it makes smoking look super cool too. And I’m not sure, but I
don’t think that’s the message they were going for.
Here’s the super-smokin’ anti-smoking spot:
