Are smoking ads going a little to far to convince you to stop smoking? Probably not if you still smoke, but for the rest of the world that does not smoke these ads are a little hard to view. Weather they are commercials during your favorite TV show or a print ad with a powerful image and catchy phrase in the magazine in your bathroom. Are these ads suitable in family publications or on the TV during prime time?
A recent NY TV station posted two on their website recently. The image shows a little boy left alone in a busy area without a parent. The boy begins to look terrified. Imagine how he would feel if he lost you for a lifetime. This ad pulls at the viewer’s heartstrings and is more targeted toward mothers who smoke. One thing that these anti-smoking campaigns do really well is target their audiences and have multiple ads pinpoint a different group.
So just like putting your child in an area with a smoker is dangerous to their health , is it really ok for a child to view ads like these? Perhaps if there wasn’t a need for the ads that would take care of them, but after all of the marketing that large tobacco companies have been able to do in the past there is a lot of clean up to be done. We have looked at the harm that the media has done to our current culture and now they are trying to make it better. Are they being successful?
The impact that visual communication has is obvious. As adults, it is our duty to protect the children in our lives. If you wouldn’t want your children to see ads like these then why would you smoke around them?
