"They’re not scared of lung cancer and they can’t imagine ever developing heart disease. So the Food and Drug Administration is trying to get at what might really scare teenagers in its first campaign against smoking: looking ugly and stupid."
I think we need to switch up how we are advertising to different age groups because so far they have not been effective for healthy outcomes. I am excited to see this campaign and see if the numbers change. The article states that 90 percent of adult smokers picked up the habit by age 18.
"Our kids are the replacement customers for the addicted adult smokers who die or quit each day," said Mitch Zeller, the director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. "And that's why we think it's so important to reach out to them — not to lecture them, not to throw statistics at them — but to reach them in a way that will get them to rethink their relationship with tobacco use."
This quote states perfectly why it is important to act against the negative advertisements and the tobacco and alcohol companies who want to create lifelong customers by attracting youth. Advertising has become more and more inappropriate; regardless of age group or even product. I believe it is really important to do something and limit what our youth see so they do not get in a trap for the rest of their lives. My brother and best friend both do advertising and I have been getting their viewpoints recently on these things. My best friend really focuses on not using sexual content to advertise. Unfortunately, it won't stop because it is effective. Now our generation needs to find a way to stop it.
This plan/campaign sounds like a great plan. I certainly can see potential issues with it, but I think it's a great plan. Why issues? Well, for one, they may do a poor job; perhaps exaggerate too much or something else that causes it to backfire. Though I can think of some ideas that seem like they would work great, so I expect they can do a great job. For another potential issue, there are many adult smokers heavily addicted and unlikely to quit. Making smokers look stupid sounds to me like it means making many adults look stupid. This includes parents looking stupid to their children, and accordingly loosing their children's respect and much of their ability to teach their children. Perhaps this will cause an uproar of people upset with the campaign. On the other hand, perhaps this will get many of the adults to quit because they realize the younger generation will think of them as stupid.
ReplyDeleteAnywho, I think the plan is great and I look forward to seeing the results. I appreciate great supplementary tactics such as this in making a world a better place; I mean supplementary to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the most successful tactic, I believe, in swaying people to be and become good people who make the world a better place.
Thank you for sharing. :)