Smoking in car ads may be too much
Von cigarettesonline1, 24.10.2012, 15:42
Sometimes no matter how slick, clever or expensive an advertisement, the tone just doesn't seem to click. That's how I feel about the ANZ ads featuring the actor from the TV show The Mentalist, Simon Baker.
I've never watched the show, so perhaps that's why I don't really get the concept of having a man make creepy and inappropriate approaches to women in cafes and parks. No doubt there's a lot of clever stuff going on that I'm just missing, but for me the overriding message seems to be: We have no personal boundaries and we like to jump to conclusions about you. I have a similar reaction to the ad about smoking in cars.
You know the one - a children's sports coach starts to give a friendly wave to a child's parent waiting in a car, only to change her look to one of stern disapproval when she sees the woman is smoking. The mother looks shamefully at her cigarette, as though she'd never considered smoking to be bad before, but will now think again. The tag line could well be: "Smoke in your car and sporty people will judge you."
Smoking in cars with children is the next target on the battle to stamp out smoking altogether, with a proposal to introduce a ban. Fair enough. Inhaling second-hand smoke is harmful, and a car is a nicely enclosed space where the smoke can be very easily breathed in by someone else - especially someone too young to object.
If there are parents who chose to ignore what the world knows about the effect of cigarette smoke, then yes, someone should step in. It's a no-brainer. What I get a queasy feeling about is the kind of social-engineering campaign that aims to alienate smokers. I'd rather we stuck to informing about the facts. As a non-smoker, I'll never know how hard it is to quit, so finger-wagging judgment seems unfair.
