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Worst Ad Ever?
Submitted by timturner on Mon, 2008-03-03 20:30
By reproducing it, I'm probably playing right into the hands of the creator of this image, but, I thought it deserved to be commented on here: The copy reads, "Terrorism-related deaths since 2001: 11,337 • Tobacco-related deaths since 2001: 30,000,000." First spotted at Andrew Sullivan, but it's also up at Wonkette and Gawker, where one commenter wrote, "Ugh. That's offensive enough to almost make me want to take up smoking." It's tied to an organization called "Action on Smoking and Health," which has posted a page about the ad on their web site (and has invited the public to respond). While the page states that the ad campaign has only been circulated in draft, it also notes that "The controversy is not so much over the numbers, but rather over whether the analogy is a fair and meaningful one, and whether it is appropriate to compare deaths caused by terrorists (either on 9/11 or more generally) with deaths caused by smoking." Indeed. What say you, .viz? It's probably also worth noting (as others have, and as ASH acknolwedges) that the concept is not original: Tags:
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Tim, you beat me to it. I
Tim, you beat me to it. I was going to post this. Great minds think alike. As far as I know the ad was originally blogged by Copyranter.
Maybe I will be in the
Maybe I will be in the minority here, but I do find the analogy to be a fair and meaningful one. The group sponsoring this ad asks, "Is it appropriate to compare deaths caused by terrorists with deaths caused by smoking?" It seems to me that you can, but only if you are working from a conception of the smoking industry as a group that lies to and manipulates it audience in order to keep them addicted to and buying cigarettes. By juxtaposing the phrases "terrorism-related" and "tobacco-related" the wording and visual layout of this ad implies that just as terrorists are behind the burning of the towers, cigarette companies are behind the 30,000,000 smoking. In stronger terms, this ad argues that cigarette execs are the terrorists.
A good example of this kind of thinking can be found at in the Truth anti-smoking campaign, on whose website you can find an entire category of facts that show the kinds of marketing strategies used by big tobacco companies.
Here are some examples:
"Problems with self-esteem. Has menial, boring job. Emotionally insecure. Passive-aggressive. Probably leads fairly dull existence. Grooming not a strong priority. Lacks inner resources. Group conformist. Non-thinking. Not into ideas. Insecure follower. These are all terms taken from Big Tobacco’s files that have been used to describe different groups of potential customers for their deadly, addictive products."
and
"In 1995, a major tobacco company decided to boost cigarette sales by targeting homeless people. They called their plan 'Project SCUM: Sub Culture Urban Marketing.'"
However, the struggle an ad like this faces is that the values that make it effective also make it offensive. Wanting to draw a parallel between the activities of those who bombed the twin towers and those who market and sell cigarettes provides the potential for a strong pathetic appeal, but only if a reader is willing to buy it. The struggle with an ad like this is that the comparison might only work is you already conceptualize cigarettes and more importantly those who sell them in an especially negative light. So, in terms of convincing a new audience, the ad might not be so effective. Which is why I find their invitation for readers to respond as genius. It seems to me that this will work to defuse some of the criticism of their ad, and create a dialogue about not only it but about how various people view the cigarette industry.
Some confusion, then limiting clarity
My screen size allowed me to see the image without the Twin Towers proportion, that is, I saw it first not as a citation of terror, but of smoke stack pollution (the second image's intention, I think). The visual is very strong, but it's worth considering the reliance of the image on the text. The above response is right, terror and tobacco provide a pithy rhetorical phrase, but sans the text, the image has the plausible deniability of invoking multiple cultural cues.
But with the cue, it's something different. If we accept the tobacco industry as nefarious, it's a plausible analogy, but even then, the comparison doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The image works on visual similarity, but the visual is, as is often the case, overly simple. The categories of victim and agressor or threat are much more complicated than can be suggested by the image. It does the right kind of work for the anti-smoking group, but the wrong kind of work culturally. Which may make the impluse to test the image the most intriguing part of the image, as it suggests an ethos of the image in terms of its circulation, a category that is under-explained in a lot of visual work.