I am going to start off by saying that based off of the message at the end and their past activity Truth the anti-smoking organization at least meant for this ad to combat smoking tobacco particularly cigarettes from big tobacco companies. I think more specifically they are trying to highlight the way we perceive cigarettes in our society, especially the way they are sometimes portrayed as this sort of mysterious and cool thing to do. By showing celebrities smoking they are trying to show that we often associate people who are famous with being cool and how they treat cigarettes is irresponsible. At least, this is what Truth was thinking with this ad. I think they made a fatal flaw however, when they chose to show us a bunch of images of people who are generally admired doing the very thing that they don't want you to be doing. If I was against whipped cream and you were a big Johnny Depp fan, it would probably not help my campaign if I showed you pictures of your idol eating whipped cream happily. In fact, I would argue that it would be more effective as an advertisement for whipped cream. We see this sort of advertising everyday with a multiplicity of advertisements when companies utilize celebrity spokespeople. I would go on to ad that not only did they show them smoking but they also highlighted the fact that they weren't getting paid to do it, they were choosing to do it because they liked it. It seems like this would be in some ways more effective than the average spokesperson advertisement because we all know that the spokesperson is getting paid a good amount of money to do the ad, I doubt many of us think that they really love the product that they are selling.
I kind of doubt Ms. Aniston loves smart water so much she did this for free.
But that is exactly what Truth is highlighting, that big tobacco companies didn't pay them to have pictures with cigarettes, the celebrities chose to smoke because they like to smoke.
Now I would like to say that I do think that it was good that Truth made a commercial and launched it during the MTV Video Music Awards because that is probably more of a younger crowd and that is who they are trying to reach, however since I don't think that it was a good ad it may have done more harm than good. Now I would like to highlight one thing that I think they did well, and that is the appeal that they used or rather didn't use. I think that in general the appeal that makes the most sense or perhaps is the most obvious for anti-smoking would be a fear appeal. Because of the harming nature of cigarettes, it would be easy to make an ad that would evoke some fear of smoking, but I think it was better that instead they went more for a rational appeal approach for two reasons. First, there are already SO many fear appeal anti-smoking ads that I think it might have been less effective because we have already seen so many of them. Secondly, I think that considering the audience they are trying to reach a logical appeal is better so as to avoid coming off as some sort of concerned parent, which may be nice, but the younger adults they are trying to reach tend to have some rebellious qualities that may not resist that approach. Instead they came off as trying to make them understand and choose for themselves to not smoke. Overall I think Truth missed the mark on this one because I think they did a poor job of sending the message that they meant to. I do hope that they are successful in the future and learn from their mistakes however, and that they continue to do their part in ending cigarette addiction.
