Stealth Cigarette Commercial: Difference between revisions

== Real Examples ==

 

** This is especially bad, because teenagers spend so much effort trying to be perceived as adults - that's the whole ''point'' of many of them taking up smoking!

** Or, "Don't be the kind of douche who uses [[Totally Radical|'wacko']] unironically - light up!"

'''VO Guy:''' Why'd you quit?

'''Teen:''' I decided I didn't need all that. }}

: "... unless you want to be cool."

*** Or "Be an uncool loser: don't smoke."

*** Or "If you're taking advice from PSAs, [[Disobey This Message|you're not really being your own person, now are you]]?"

* There's also the "Right Decision, Right Now" campaign, which, in addition to having anti-smoking products that are ridiculously lame, also implies that, while smoking is a bad decision ''now'', it might be okay ''later.''

** Benson & Hedges pulled its funding for the Symphony of Fire and the Toronto International Film Festival in 2000 when new advertising regulations came into effect. The subtext was that they were only funding them to get their logo displayed, not to support culture.

* Outside TV, note the "If you're thinking about quitting smoking..." brochures sometimes attached to cigarette packages. Inside is information on the health benefits of quitting—information that might reinforce your decision to quit. Of course, as long as the pack is already open...

* There's one in the Netherlands, Canada and the United Kingdom which shows an attractive woman smoking, and then says "Lose The Smoke Keep The Fire". The problem is she still looks sexy smoking, and kind of dorky afterwards. This is a rather indirect version, however, since it's coming from Nicotinell Gum, which doesn't make any money if smokers keep on smoking, but does make money from maintaining a steady consumer base of smokers in need of its product to help them quit. [http://www.nicotinell.nl/index.jsp Here it is].

** Also, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSWfyx7pgfk one French TV commercial] showed some evil company's Big Bads being assembled to find a way to eliminate tons of toxic wastes, and ending up creating the idea of cigarettes ("People are ready to pay to swallow this crap"); while it is an intriguing idea for a story, the acting was so bad that it looked like a parody, and gave points to the Smokers Are Cooler team instead.

* [[John Waters]] filmed a pre-movie spot for an art house theater where he tells the patrons that there is no smoking allowed in the theater... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnpofBtijF8 while smoking a cigarette] and asking the audience if they wished they had one. Then he [[Lampshade Hanging|tells them to smoke anyway]], since it gives the ushers something to do.

** If you don't want to forget your lotto ticket and potentially miss out on that jackpot, stop caring about your family.

* Polish TV saw several suspicious ads: an advertisement of "Bols boat" (the Polish for boat differs in but one letter from "vodka", and Bols is a brand of vodka), "Recreational Equestrian Tourism Soplica" (Polish acronym for that sounds very much like "vodka", and "Soplica" is a brand of vodka), the ad with huge Martini logo and a very small text explaining that Martini is sponsoring some nobody's-heard-of film fest...

* There was an ad that ran in theatres last year that was anti-weed. It featured two badly drawn stick figures—a man and a dog—talking about weed. The message was basically, "Don't do pot or your dog will be disappointed in you".