Shock & Gore - TV Ads - Enough is Enough

[Hagar]

G'day All,

We in Oz we've had an alarming rise in the rate of "Shock Value", TV ads in the last couple of years.

Back in 1987 we were introduced to the aids Grim Reaper. This was a short run campaign which did little other than increase homophobia and scare the kiddies.


Now, almost 20 years later the shock ad has been revived with a couple of government funded beauties; One for speeding ("every K over is a killer" & "enough is enough") featuring realistic road accidents including a bloodied baby, dead mother and traumatised son screaming "daddy!" and another series of ads for anti-smoking featuring a doctor about to amputate a gangrenous foot, with plenty of graphic footage (boom-boom) of the limb before surgery.

Does anyone think these things work? I don't smoke, and I drive for a living, so speeding is basically out of the question. Therefore I'm not in a position to be convinced, only disgusted.

There's no doubting that these ads are well made for what they are, but I believe that they just DON'T work. The main reason I think this is because the "it won't happen to me" factor (which, lets face it, is the main reason that we don't just stay in bed with the covers pulled up over our heads every morning) is just too strong.

I think that these ads are simply our governments' way of saying "look we ARE doing something about these terrible things - now it's up to YOU".

So my questions are:
Does anyone else get these type of ads? and
Does anyone think they work?