Posted by John
Here is yet another link to an article that I fully anticipate you will not read so I will summarize it for you:
Basically Northwester University did a study to find out that advertising intended to stop binge drinking on college campuses is actually contributing to the problem. Really? We really paid somebody to do this study? They interviewed 1000 college students to come to this conclusion. Really? I can only assume the conductors of the study were either 8-years-old or had some how wandered into a hyperbaric sleep chamber for the duration of their teenage years because if they had gone to high school or college all they would have had to do to complete this study was interview one person: themselves.
Interviewer: “So, Self, what do you think about binge drinking?”
Interviewer’s Self: “It’s fucking awesome!”
Interviewer: “Really? Why do you say that?”
Interviewer’s Self: “Uhh, because it’s awesome and chicks are way more willing to make out with me when they’re wasted.”
Interviewer: “I see. And how do you feel about advertising designed to discourage you from binge drinking?”
Interviewer’s Self: *PFFFRT!*
Interviewer: “Uhh, did you just fart in response to that question?”
Interviewer’s Self: “Yup.”
Interviewer: “Wow, ok. Well, I guess that concludes our study.”
The study went on to suggest that using guilt and shame to warn of the dangers of binge drinking was particularly ineffective. Really? Someone actually thought that guilting or shaming a teenager would get them to do or not do something?
“Timothy! Turn off that godforsaken music! You’re going to go to hell if you keep listening to it!”
“I know, mom. That’s the point. That’s why it’s called Death March to Hell by Metal Death Machine,” as Tim cranks it up to eleven.
Finally they concluded that advertising would be more effective if it was positive and the message was toned down. What? How are you going to spin a positive message out of binge drinking? “Sure, binge drinking is fun. But do you know what’s more fun? Calculus!” Come on. Advanced mathematics is not a solution to drinking; it’s a cause.
This whole discussion is very timely because every day I drive past this billboard on the way to work that is an advertisement for an organization that helps teens fight addiction. Now, on the surface this sounds like a great organization and one that I could fully support because teen addiction is a legitimate problem. But then when you look that billboard you realize this organization is a one-way ticket to failure:
What’s wrong with this billboard? I’ll tell you what’s wrong - that kid looks cool as hell. He looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world like he’s thinking, “Dude, I’m soooo wasted right now. This is awesome! I’m going to go make out with some chicks.” That’s because some adult dreamed up this advertisement and thought if you showed a picture of some listless kid sucking on a beer bottle it would send a strong message. Well you’re right – the message is, “I need to find someone who’s 21 and willing to buy me some booze!”
If they wanted this ad to really be effective they would have taken the biggest most awkward pimply faced loser from the home ec class, stuck a beer in his hand and the tag line would be, “Kiss all your friends and popularity goodbye because binge drinking will make you look like this kid.” Boom. Problem solved. If while I was growing up I had seen an advertisement for something that promised to make me more awkward than I already was, I would have avoided that shit like chicks avoided me. It’s that simple.
Listen, I’m not trying to say that binge drinking is okay or cool or that trying to discourage teens from drinking is a bad idea. I’m just saying you shouldn’t have to fund a study through a major university to figure out that methods dreamed up by parents of teenagers to try to stop teenagers from drinking is not going to work. No, if you really want to discourage kids from binge drinking, or doing anything they shouldn’t be doing, you need to really get a lot more childish and devious than that: go at them with fear. Fear and lies.
Let me try out a few advertising slogans on you here and you tell me if this won’t scare the shit out of some teenagers:
“If you drink alcohol, the terrorists win.”
“Marijuana is a gateway to socialism.”
“Pre-marital sex will kill your grandmother.”
Do you know why that will work? Because teenagers are dumb. Okay, okay – that’s a bit harsh. Maybe they’re not so much dumb as they’re just blissfully uninformed. About everything. When was the last time you saw a teenager reading something informative? Never, is the answer to that one. So all you need to do is find the one or two tv channels that all teenagers watch and the handful of websites they visit everyday and just flood them with advertising full of lies and fear.
“If you skip school your dad will lose his job.” What? Is that true? Oh my god, if my dad loses his job I won’t be able to steal money from is wallet to buy weed. That’s horrible!
“Cigarettes are manufactured in China by Russians and packaged by Iranians in North Korea.” Wow. No one wants to support nuclear ambitious cold war communist Muslim dictatorial regimes.
“Only alcoholics pay taxes.” Holy shit! What’s worse than being sober? Taxes! Obviously.
“Support our troops: Say no to drugs.” Wait… are you trying to say that drugs are unpatriotic?
You’ve got to scare the shit out of the kids and the best way to scare the kids is to lie to them because they are too dumb to know otherwise.
If you go back to that billboard I drive by everyday and instead of showing a picture of badass looking kid drinking a beer you simply said, “Beer is like free health insurance for illegal immigrants,” Bam! The only people that will be drinking beer from now on are people with zero-premium private health insurance like Medicare and Medicaid. It’s that simple.
No comments:
Post a Comment