Teaching our Children by Example~Are we always the best role model?

The advertisement I chose is a public service announcement, and I feel it’s super effective for many reasons. This ad has an empty. pack of Marlboro cigarettes filled with Crayola crayons. There is the hand of what must be an adult holding the pack. The sentence next to the box reads, “Do you want them to take after everything you do?” The bottom of the ad them says, “Quit today.”

This chilling advertisement, while no one is trying to sell something here is extremely effective, in my opinion. They use scare tactics to convince people to quit smoking. The approach that is commonly used to convince people to quit is to scare them into the terrible side effects cause to themselves by smoking. But many times if someone is addicted, concerns about their own health are well past their mind. It’s not like people are unaware of what smoking does to your body. What makes this ad very unique (kind of like a usp) is that they bring someone else’s health into play. To any parent, the most important person in the world to them is their child. Most kids have a very ‘monkey see, monkey do’ attitude at a young age. Even as children grow up to become teenagers their parents still have a huge influence on them. And the thought that your child could be following in your footsteps. has got to be absolutely petrifying to a parent who smokes. This would be a more effective way to get people to quit because now they are doing it for someone besides themselves, someone much more important to them.

This would most likely be an example of need to nurture because a parent would want to take care of their child by quitting smoking. As for the psychological perspective, I would call this one a Freud example because there is a subconscious fear behind the crayons in the cigarette box. A parent viewing this could imagine. their baby growing up and picking up the nasty habit that they have battled with.

The color choice is also very carefully chosen because the whole image is in black and white, but them the crayons are bright. It draws one’s attention immediately to the crayons and causes you to think, “What are a child’s crayons doing in a cigarette box.” It’s almost sickening to see it.

Finally, this has a very particular audience, which definitely effects the effectiveness of the ad in general. The goal is to get people to stop smoking, but not everyone is a parent, and therefore those smokers who are not would not be as effected, if at all by this argument. So the advertiser would want to be wise about where he spends his money putting it.

In short, when displayed in front of the correct audience, this piece is highly effective. It draws attention in quickly, its unique, and it gets the message across with just a few short words.