i happen to think it's a good campaign and i think the commercials are done really well. like in a way that is cool enough that it grabs kids attention and gets the message out there, even if they don't totally buy it right off. it's not preachy, it just tells you facts although obviously it spins them towards the angle of not smoking...i mean that's what the whole campaign is about.

if you don't know what i'm talking about their website is http://www.thetruth.com. they have some of the tv spots online.

anyway just wondered what you guys thought about the campaign?

andy

solely on the advertising/campaign side, i find it very very cool. they use street theater to get their message across which is cutting edge and confrontational, but not hostile. it's still up to the observers to inolve themselves or not. however, being a smoker, i'm tempted to roll my eyes a lot. the recent baby one with the quotes on the dolls makes me laugh and forget everything just because they don't cite the quote, no proof is given. i think they attribute it to "a tabacco company executive". that's one step away from saying "we pulled this quote out of our asses" in my eyes.

even if it seems cheesy at times to me, i find the anti-propaganda propaganda campaign very interesting. especially their magazine ads. they don't specifically tell you what to do, just show images of the ad being used and thus suggest it that way.

ie. there was a multiple page ad that was just two orange pages with some anti tobacco thing written on it. before the two pages was a picture of a supermarket line with lots of the magazines opened to those pages and displayed prominently.... it's like guerilla warfare through subtleties.

yeah i agree, if i was a smoker there are a few spots of theirs that would make me just roll my eyes and think 'oh please...'...but i just really like how they're going at it. i think milo described it really well.

andy

I like the amonia-ade one :) I think the ads are done very well. Much more effective than some of their past campaigns, and each add grabs a different segment of the population. The recent ones with the babys (there are two different ones) really strike at women and young mothers I think.

I don't see their motives. It makes me suspicious to why they are doing all this. They give an explanation on their site but that falls along the lines of the 'let's pull quotes out of our asses' thing. It really can in fact be untruthful. There was a period where I was anti-cigarettes and these ads really pissed me off anyways.

i played death in an anti cig commercial my school made for the ut health science center. i think it only aired in SA, and you couldn't tell it was me, but it was still funny. i had to wear panty hose over my head and smoke through.... i had bronchitis at the time too so that sucked.

Those commercials make me want to light up. And occassionally i do roll my eyes, but hey... it's a commercial. One thing though, they made tobacco companies take down any "cutesy" advertising that would appeal to kids (i.e. Joe Camel). Dolls are cutesy too. Make them (the Truth people) take away their doll commercials. I hate dolls anyway.

they aren't using their dolls to target children, and even if a kid did advertenly think 'hey a doll, what's that all about', it's about not smoking. big difference.

andy

as far as advertising goes i think the ads are borderline genius. as for making people not want to smoke, whether it is truthfull or not, i think its probably more effective than anything in the past.