As someone who knows something about emotional appeal in advertising, it's very frustrating for me to see the succession of anti-smoking commercials that are costing State and Federal governments millions of dollars to create and run, but that completely miss the mark.
Undoubtedly created by non-smokers, and effectively communicating to other non-smokers who, no doubt, watch the commercials and wonder why anyone would smoke in this enlightened age, these commercials have virtually NO EFFECT on actual smokers and would-be young smokers, since the effective emotional appeal for these people is NOT "Self Preservation"!
According to the time-tested Emotional Appeal theory, as defined by Roy Garn, a pioneer in the field of human communication in the 1950s, there are 4 distinct emotional appeals affecting humans...with each person being primarily influenced by one, and in some cases, secondarily influenced by another.
The appeals are, in no particular order:
- Self Preservation
- Money
- Romance
- Recognition (Ego)
For people who smoke in this day and age, Self Preservation is not a factor! Also, unless they've got money to burn (literally), Money isn’t even on their Emotional list.
Recognition, and/or Romance, in almost every case, are the motivating emotional appeals that cause people to smoke in the first place. To "look cool," to follow the crowd. To appeal to the opposite sex.
Then once they're hooked, it's difficult to quit. And according to Roy Garn, just as leopards don't change their spots, people don't change their primary emotional appeal throughout their lives. That doesn't mean that 50 and 60-year-old smokers are doing it to "look cool." It just means that these smokers cannot be motivated to quit using a "Self Preservation" appeal. That’s simply not part of their Emotional makeup. A smart Recognition appeal would be the way to go.
So, instead of showing blackened lungs...show their children talking honestly about how they have such little respect for their smoking parents. Even more powerful...to get young people to quit...or not start smoking in the first place...show a focus group of attractive teens talking about what assholes smokers are. These should be REAL-LIFE teens, not actors with scripts. I'm talking about doing real focus groups of attractive, non-smoking teens, talking freely about how they view smokers as jerks. It would be easy and inexpensive to cut a dozen different commercials from that focus group so that almost every time you see one it's different, and playing to the Recognition and Romance appeal would be far, far more effective than the gruesome, ineffective crap that ad agencies (and governments) are so fond of.
Now here’s what’s interesting and would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. New York State has one of the most gruesome anti-smoking campaigns in the country. So I wrote to the powers that be in NYS government with these exact thoughts and suggestions and they wrote back, proudly defending their commercial with these statistics:
An estimated 1.64 million Americans tried to quit smoking because of the campaign.
About 100,000 smokers are expected to stay quit for good.
An estimated 6 million nonsmokers talked with friends and family about the dangers of smoking, and an estimated 4.7 million additional nonsmokers recommended cessation services to their friends and family.
O.K.!!! That backs up everything I told them! So that's 1 out of every 16 smokers "expecting" to stay quit for good (good intentions but in reality the actual number will probably be lower). Perhaps that can be defined as somewhat of a success, BUT clearly the quitters are almost all doing it, NOT from the grisly commercials since they are NOT motivated by health concerns, but are quitting (at least temporarily) due to an intervention by concerned loved ones and family members who do not smoke, have never smoked, and who ARE in fact impacted by the grisly commercials.
I believe the expression is “preaching to the choir.” Commercials that are communicating the dangers of smoking are getting through STRICTLY TO NON-SMOKERS! Minimal effectiveness...when they could be impacting the smokers THEMSELVES.
This is just one example of so very many, very expensive and very misdirected advertising campaigns that I see every day and that have brought me out of my semi-retirement and caused me to offer my services to the needy. To you?
