Jump to full article: News Interactive Network/News Limited/News.com (au), 2008-03-17
Author: Patrick Begley
Intro: A BLOOD clot plopping out of a bisected brain. Tar being squeezed from a lung into a surgeon's dish. A foot blackened with gangrene awaiting the amputation saw.
A generation of young Australians have grown up with these images, with anti-smoking ads more graphic than the latest Saw movie.
The shock factor of these campaigns has helped gradually reduce Australia's smoking population. Yet every day someone still buys their first packet of Stuyvos from a 7-Eleven and begins their habit.
Why? Because the anti-smoking campaigns of past and present appeal to the mortality of a demographic which is immortal. . . .
This truth demands a new breed of anti-smoking advertisements whose message concerns not mortality, but vanity.
. . .
Packets of cigarettes should bear warnings such as: SMOKING CAUSES WRINKLES; SMOKING STAINS YOUR TEETH; SMOKING TURNS YOUR SKIN GREY.
Finally, imagine what terror a message like: SMOKING AGES YOU PREMATURELY, would strike into the hearts of our youth-obsessed society. . . .
But a parlous complexion or a ruined smile are still much more immediate threats than being in an emphysema ward at the age of 63.
The shots of cancer-devoured organs continue to serve their purpose. The more gimmicky, "I'd prefer mouth cancer to premature blindness" campaign still gets its message across.
But unless Wizened Chic becomes the next big thing in Milan, vanity-based anti-smoking ads can be the extra deterrent the government has been looking for.
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