Has Advertising Gone Too Far?

Have you ever seen an ad in a magazine or a TV commercial that disgusted you so much you cant help but remember it? Shocking advertisements has become increasingly frequent when a certain company is trying to effectively getting their message across. By appealing to your emotions, whether it be pity, anguish, disgust or humor, certain advertisements will stick with you forever....just like it was intended.

But are some of these companies going too far? I came across a few anti-smoking advertisements that almost shocked me to my core. The images baffled me. The one above states "The average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes a year. Get unhooked. Call 0900 169 0 169 or visit getunhooked.co.uk" If I hadn't read the text, I would never have understood the point of this ad. I understand that cigarettes are an addictive drug and that it is easy to become 'hooked' on them, but is the picture portraying the text in a literal sense going too far? On the other hand, is this horrid picture effective enough to show how bad smoking is?

I understand why an ad like that would have that particular picture and I believe that in come instances it is a smart marketing tool. However, there are other such ads that have emotionally disturbing pictures that sometimes do not effectively relate to its message.

This next ad is also an anti-smoking campaign. The text reads, "NO MORE KILLING. It is estimated that one person dies every 8 seconds from smoking. Stop smoking now!" While the statistic is a shocking truth, the picture bothered me a lot. Obviously the two burning cigarettes look like the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks, but does that have to do with the smoking? Yes it says "No More Killing", but wouldn't it have made more sense if the statistic had said something like 'The amount of people who die from cigarettes is equivalent to that of how many died during the terrorist attacks" (if it were true of course)? I think that people who were personally affected by the terrorist attacks would be very offended by this advertisement. Why should they have to be reminded of a loved-one they lost by seeing an advertisement about cigarette smoking?

While I commend what these people are advertising for and how they are promoting a healthier life style, I believe there are better ways to achieve that. In the instance of the first advertisement, I think that while mildly disturbing, it is an affective way to promote their message. However, when it comes to the case of the second ad, i think they went to far.

After coming across these ads, it only made me think that this will be a new trend in the PR world. We've been sheltered from the type of gruesomeness that is all around us, such as not showing injured/deceased people from a car accident on the news, to a point where advertising like this has a real affect on us. I think that is becoming a very marketable and powerful tool in this industry, and we will be seeing a lot more of it to come.

Google: Hurting the News Industry, or a Hero in Disguise?

Today I read a NY Times article by Miguel Helft (click to see article) on the new service Google released.  As if it wasn't already a threat to some of the news industry, Google is taking the news off the stands and onto your computer.  The company revealed an "experimental news hub called Fast Flip."

As I read on, I learned that this new hub would allow its users to read stories from dozens of major publishers and "flip through them as fast as they would the pages of a magazine." The first thing I thought after reading this was that Google is bringing laziness to an art form... but then I thought back to something I learned in my Senior year of high school. I took an AP Environmental Science class, and aside from all of the 'tree-hugging' ideals that were instilled in my brain, I remembered something that had actually shocked me. I believe it was that roughly 70 percent of landfills are filled with paper. So is Google's new service a good thing? Aside from being a major competitor to these publications, Google is taking a step into the future while 'Going Green' in a sense. 

We are now in the age of Digital Communication, so if news is conveyed to the media in a faster and more efficient way, more people are bound to read it. Within the article, a researcher at Google, Krishna Bharat, commented on this idea:

"Browsing news on the Web is much slower than it is in print...When it is fast, people will look at more news and more ads, and that's something that publishers want to see."

I know that when I myself read the news paper, I don't read the whole thing and it ends up going to waste. If Fast Flip avoids the waste and brings the news to the media in a quicker way than browsing than I think that it can be a very successful program.  Though it was never mentioned, I can only assume that this feature will be free, which is another plus as opposed to buying the paper everyday.  

I like the innovations that Google and other online sites are coming up with because expanding our use of technology is like taking one giant leap towards the future.  The closing paragraph in this article explained that Fast Flip will also soon be available on some mobile phones... and all I could do was laugh and say "well obviously."  Honestly..who didn't see that coming?