Hey guys, it was very enjoyable looking at those advertisements together on Wednesday. Well, i guess some pictures don't warrant the term enjoyable >< Anyways, I just wanted to summarize a bit what we noticed, so we don't forget.
1. Scare tactics definitely do send powerful messages, but they may be too extreme and end up not working as effectively.
1a. In addition, people can ignore the unslightly pictures by using cigarette cases, etc.
2. Metaphors are more effective than literal persuasion. We talked about the shrunken apple vs the wrinkled hand.
3. Our Swedish friends generally agreed that undesirable consequences that are more likely, eg. yellow teeth, gum diseases, are also more persuasive than say, gangrene on the foot.
3a. Is this connected to our obsession over our physical appearances?
What I thought interesting throughout this whole thing is that when we look at ad's, there's more of a difference in opinion along gender lines, or age differences, than because of differences in geographical location or race. I guess it's because smoking is a very cross-cultural issue. There's no major difference between the effects of smoking in America and in Europe. Thus in a sense, the ad's transcends culture, but not gender and age. Just something to note.
So I was browsing the net today and I came across a Soviet Anti-alcoholism site. I don't read Russian, so most of the posters is pretty hard to decipher. But I thought this one is pretty interesting. Notice that the only colored part of the picture is the bottle of alcohol and snake. I think the ad probably appeals to parents.
The ads in the form of posters also differs a lot when compared to the modern pictures and computer generated graphics we saw on Wednesday. Which do you guys think is more effective?
Here's the website: http://www.tululuka.net/alco/
