advert

In France, in January, a TV advertisement showed a woman smoking. A few seconds later, you can see the consequences of smoking: it's very shocking because she has a hole in her throat to speak and the cameraman zooms on it. This is horrible. We all know they have to shock us to prevent us from smoking but this is too much! Have they imagined that babies or young boys and girls watch television???

Ok, they won't smoke, this is a good thing for them but maybe some young people can be shocked for all their life! This is a big consequence. Moreover, this ad is shown in the daytime, and also during lunch or dinner. Imagine! you are eating and you see this… Watching horror films is less shocking than this advertisement, and they are not on when you are eating!

Here we picked two interviews of persons criticising this ad :

"I wanted to react to the new campaign without-tobacco. Is it really necessay to show a person speaking with a hole in her throat? My children were very shocked by those unbearable images." (A. Benisti, 75 Paris, France)

"Have we thought of the sensitivity of young viewers before broadcasting the last ad of anti-tobacco prevention at peak listening time? (Jean-Michel Doussel, 60 Senlis, France)

I'm addressing the creators of this ad : Please, think of the consequences of your acts, think of young people!!!

If you wish to react to this article, write to the editor.

I don’t understand your reaction. To me, this ad is a revolution in advertising and a good kind of prevention.

First, in the war against "pollution by advertisement", I think that this one is useful : as you said, "it’s a good thing for them". What’s more, in our "advanced society", young people are so influenced by television that we can’t give a message through another way to affect their minds…The next victims of tobacco are the teenagers between 14 and 20, and they don’t read adverts in the newspapers. So television is the best tool to enter in their world!

As far as show time is concerned, let me remark that an ad is made to be seen by a maximum of people and the effect would not be the same if it was broadcast at 3 a.m.!

Don’t forget that this situation isn’t fictitious; the spot wasn’t made with special effects. So the woman lives with this "horror throat" for all her life.

Don’t you think she would have been fortunate to learn about the risks of tobacco at the time when she took her first cigarettes? That’s why I defend the ad: the advert is to prevent other cases of larynx cancers, and not to please people after a day of work! Cancer is a pest in our society and we must educate and warn children. What’s more, at first hand some ill people lodged a complaint for not being warned of the risk of smoking, and on the second hand, people like you groan for being too affected. In that case, prevention is an infinite fight!

In my view, the problem is that teenagers aren’t attracted by other things than violence and shocks… Take for example the road safety campaign: weren’t you shocked by scenes of deaths, of killing members of their own family? In fashion, they even express that or "their hate" as they say! So we give them a shock and then everybody is scandalized.

Polls on tobacco led with teenagers show that they aren’t afraid of the risks of cancers. First they answer, laughing (!): "We’ve got all our life", but they’re more affected by appearance (always the same). Get teeth and fingers yellow, an impure skin and so many other effects trouble them. Always for appearance, they don’t want to stop smoking for fear of putting on weight. The ad is the best physical reason to stop smoking and it should even disgust them not to take the fatal first cigarette. You see: it just can work with this kind of ad!

For an ad, to make you interested in the product, they study your life style, what you like, etc… It works. So why couldn’t they use that for a prevention ad?

A last question: if you meet a person with this hole, will you bear looking at her "horror appearance"? If you had children and if they asked innocently: "What is it?", would you have answered easily before?

Now, we know. We just have to think of this ad before taking each cigarette…and it shouldn’t be too difficult to remember these images…

Laura (YGTP)

We think this advert is very shocking but it's good for the people who smoke too much. So this advert can encourage them to stop smoking because it's bad for them. But we would like people to stop smoking without this advert.

Good luck to stop smoking!!

Clémence and Mathilde (LAT Blois)

It may be that that 's exactly what they're doing: thinking about young people, preventing more people from talking through a hole in their throat. Don't be selfish, don't just think about your personal discomfort on seeing the ad.

Chris (LAT Blois)

April 29, 2006

The adverts to prevent tobacco, nowadays, are not good enough to make the smoker realise how bad this drug is. The advertisment that shows a hole on a woman's throat as a consequence of tobacco will probably shock children and perhaps adults too. I think that it is an excellent idea. That's the point: to make people afraid of tobacco. For childhood, the use of this harmful leaf
is glamorous, social, grown-up, and rebellious. So with light adverts they won't achieve anything.
As I live in Argentina I don`t know this advertisment but with only watching the image of this old woman I can get an idea about what the advert on TV may look like. I am sure that if I watch it, like you do in your country, I will be shocked and I would probably smoke less cigarettes. In my country, this type of advertisments does not exist; the government does not care about your health so much. Some time ago you were allowed to smoke in lots of places, even in public transports!
Now, they are thinking of prohibiting smoking in places like restaurants, shops... but they don't achieve it. In your country, the cigarettes packages have good adverts on them to make you know the consequences of tobacco. Here, the only adverts on the packages is a warning in small prints saying "smoking is bad for your health".

Andres(Buenos Aires, Argentina)