Monday, February 21, 2011

The worst anti-smoking spot I've ever seen.


(via) Compare to: the worst anti-smoking billboard I've ever seen. Here, stupid visual puns are even worse than stupid verbal puns. Is the insufferable Kenneth punneth Cole, the Worst Copywriter In The History of Advertising™, now shooting European PSAs on the side? Because this is nuclear stupid. The acting and the direction just add to the awfulness. Produced by Austria's Good Food Studio.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I totally agree. The idea is simply terrible not even talking about the execution. There is no clear connection between smoking and punching. I prefer this add where smoking is replaced by farting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGKIQ8mfJvg atleast it's funny. The add is unfortunately in Finnish, the message is "Stop a good habit in time and trough out the add people ask if it's ok to fart.

8:57 AM  
Blogger Max said...

It's pretty good.

9:47 AM  
Anonymous J Saddle said...

I would disagree, the commercial did a wonderful job with the relation of smoking and 'self-harm', in the sense that smoking does cause harm to ones body. I would also like to congratulate the producers on not 'beating' it over the heads of viewers that 'smoking is harmful'. The commercial is clear when thought about in its entirety of societies social norms(i.e. the fellow at the next table annoyed) The illusive nature is rather refreshing for it creates deeper thought processes to occur (i.e. we have think about what we just watched) Sure, it may not be the typical cut and paste commercial product that is generated by mainstream markets but I rather enjoyed it.

1:14 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I think it's a pretty good effort, I think the most effective metaphor is the blood=ash/smoke thang.

Either way, I really don't feel like punching myself in the face anymore.

6:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also disagree. It gets the point across without grossing you out the way typical anti-smoking ads do. Meaning the intended targets might actually watch it and see the ridiculousness of their habit rather than instantly look away so as not to be confronted with some disgusting medical imagery..

The smoking room/mosh pit is rather brilliant I think...

8:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey! The first rule of smoking area is one never discusses smoking area.

10:25 AM  
Anonymous John said...

This "ad" is the latest in antismoker bigotry. Have the shallow, brainwashed fools that think it’s “good” had any deeper thoughts that they themselves might be bigots? Bigotry is a serious mental dysfunction and when it becomes widespread (i.e., State-supported), it is dangerous.

Bigots not only do self-harm, but can do severe social harm.

12:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@John - Actually, bigotry is considered classically to be a serious psychiatric disorder and is the first stage of the psychotic condition of 'narcissism'. A feature of both conditions (although in bigotry to a milder degree) is that the sufferer has no awareness of their disease which is a blessing, really, since the delusional nature of the conditions tends to invite mockery.

Jay

2:28 PM  
Anonymous John said...

FTR Antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid – even murderous – history. Much of it predates even the pretense of a scientific basis.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1981/2/1981_2_94_print.shtml

Unfortunately, Dillow does not mention eugenics at all (poor research). Early-1900s public health in the USA was dominated by eugenics. Eugenics was erroneously viewed as “scientific and scholarly” and had very considerable influence over the legislature (as it does now). It was eugenics, which is also anti-tobacco and anti-alcohol, that “legitimized” the temperance movement. Sterilization laws were usually instituted before anti-tobacco, and then anti-alcohol, laws, which indicates that eugenicists were guiding the legislature regarding sterilization, antismoking, and anti-alcohol.

Antismoking popped up again in Nazi Germany, again as a point of eugenics. Hitler was a student of American eugenics.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352989/pdf/bmj00571-0040.pdf

The current antismoking crusade was set in motion by a small group operating under the auspices of the World Health Organization in the late-1960s. The denormalization/stigmatization of smoking/smokers and indoor and outdoor smoking bans was planned in the mid-1970s (see the Godber Blueprint www.rampant-antismoking.com ), years before even the first study on secondhand smoke. It continues the eugenics antismoking tradition of early-1900s USA and Nazi Germany. Much of the “evidence” since the 1970s has been tailored to fit the agenda. Many medically-aligned groups (e.g., Office of the Surgeon General) were already committed to a “smokefree world” by the 1970s. It is the medically-aligned that are venturing – again – into social engineering just as they catastrophically did in American eugenics (early 1900s) and Nazi eugenics (which was an extension of American eugenics). Eugenics, with an unhealthy definition of “health” is a demonstrably dangerous, fascist framework where medicos and their hangers-on attempt to rule society.

7:37 PM  
Anonymous John said...

The antismoking mentality has no compromise or accommodation in it. It is fanatical and extremist. It is typically exterminatory: Only complete eradication of tobacco-use will satisfy this delusional mentality. Antismoking crusades typically run on inflammatory propaganda (fear and hate-mongering) masqueraded as “scientific” intended to outrage particularly nonsmokers so that they will not question deranged antismoking conduct. The only interest antismokers have in nonsmokers is if the latter can be manipulated into antismoker bigotry.

If you think that antismoking has anything to do with protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke “danger”, then you need to think again. In places around the world, those that smoke are being denied employment, medical treatment, and housing. Smoking bans are even being instituted for large open areas such as beaches and parks. It is persecution: Inflammatory propaganda has produced a bigotry bandwagon effect. Secondhand smoke “danger” has been used as a delusional means to a delusional end.

7:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Someone else's take on the ad:

http://frank-davis.livejournal.com/2011/02/25/

9:07 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home