#psa ads

[stone-cold-groove]

Watch out for the other guy. Drive defensively! Ad promoting safe driving from the National Safety Council - 1966.

[theriversofblood]

[whiteduckling-in-advertisin-blog]

Trying to convince my parents to quit smoking for pretty much all my life, has made me quite a fan of the ingenuity of Departments of Health across the globe launching different ads to convince people the same. This one is one of the good ones.

What I like about it is that it shows a common person in a common situation, making it easy for the viewer to relate to the situation. A brilliant thing is the tagline: "If you could see the damage, you'd stop". This is what governments should have realised sooner. People need to see what happens, but not on exaggerated pictures of damage that might be caused by smoking. On pictures and videos and all visuals of things that do happen to the average cigarette smoker.

What could be improved is the extension of the damage cigarettes cause as second-hand smoke affects the other people around as well. Just show a parent how he's mutating his child's lung. Then he might actually stop and think. People who smoke already don't care about what it can do to them, but if you give them an outside reason to stop, then they could feel more motivated. The ad is indeed visual, but the question is: is it visual enough?