Advertising gone too far?
Posted on September 23, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Stupidity and randomness |
A little while ago I had to take the train to and from work for a week while the old car was in the shop and I
noticed this banner on the inside of the rail line across from the platform on which I caught my train.
I was surprised by the ‘In-your-face’ photo of a man with an amputated arm warning people of the dangers of crossing on the tracks to reach another platform rather than using any number of stairs, escalators and bridges. I would have thought that common sense would dictate that people don’t run across live tracks in front of regularly passing trains but I suppose there are always a few idiots who’ll do anything stupid in a hurry or on a dare.
I find it amazing how adverts have changed over the years to use images that would simply not have been tolerated 10 years ago. Images of cancer riddled lungs and ulcerated mouths on cigarette packages, crack addicted teens with thinning hair, revolting teeth and jaundiced pock and scar marked skin in anti-drug commercials and dead, mangled, bloody bodies in drink-driving ads.
I know the intent is to shock us into the proper behaviour of upstanding citizens and healthy adults but is it really helping children learn or just desensitizing them to the world around them? When I was 12, if I had seen someone who had just been in a car crash with broken limbs, head trauma and masses of blood, I would have been in terrible shock, probably close to vomiting but my kids are so blase about these ads…they barely even register!
So, has advertising gone too far? Or do you reckon it’s an effective method of stupidity prevention?
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2 Responses to “Advertising gone too far?”
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I think there is a danger in the desensitization - there is the initial thought of how gross these things are on first viewing but I then find that I’ll subsequently tend to tune out and ignore them. The question is does the message stick even though we have tuned out?
Good question, Loz. Hard to answer though, isn’t it? I would never dream of walking across the tracks but would someone who would be so daring be stopped by the disturbing image of an amputee? And what if they had seen that image 1000 times already?
Hmmm…