Sunday, March 15, 2009

Ineffective PSAs all over my commute

I don't know whether I'm naturally very aware of advertisements, or if Mad Men has made me that way. This one in particular seems to be everywhere, particularly at bus stops, and it really shouldn't be.

In case it's too blurry to read, the three lines are:


started going for short walks during lunch hour
stops ordering take-out and starts cooking healthy meals
just bought bikini that challenges some obscenity laws
Yikes. There are plenty of good points here about why this ad is completely mislead and offensive.

Obviously there are a lot of problems with the campaign in general, but I find--particularly when forced to stand next to this poster for any length of time--the word-choice extremely frustrating. The grammar is completely non-parallel and tense inconsistent. So who's responsible for placing this ineffective, offensive, and poorly constructed thing into my line of vision on a near-daily basis?
The Ad Council last year, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, launched a public service campaign that urges Americans to take small steps to lose pounds and inches. On the screen you see step 19 of a 120 small steps, all of which can be found on-line at www.smallstep.gov. The pro-bono work is by McCann New York and includes humorous ads showing the positive results that taking enough small steps might produce. (link)
Thank you DHHS for the wasted tax dollars and McCann for the shoddy copy and offensive/ineffective message.

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