Scare tactics

If you take drugs they’ll get you. They’ll get you, then they’ll lock you up with the rapists and the pedophiles and throw away the key. And if you ever, EVER, get out, all your friends will hate you, your parents will kill themselves out of pure shame and you’ll spend your remaining days wandering the streets alone until, one cold winter night, you die slumped in a boarded-up Woolworths shop front, alone, unloved and unremembered.

This is the subtext of the new ‘drug driving’ TV spot that is doing the rounds at the moment. It’s a message that unintentionally sums up the ridiculous scare tactics that Her Majesty’s Government are using to keep kids scared straight.

This ad is old fashioned stupid and I’m worried that we’re reaching a point where the warning adverts are becoming more idiotic than the things they are condemning.

Don’t get me wrong, driving on drugs is a monumentally stupid thing to do – it’s dangerous and people can get hurt or even killed. But you don’t get that very sensible message across to people by making an advert so stupid it could easily claim a place in the ‘Stupid Hall of Fame’ alongside transitions lenses, that turn a diarrhea brown hew in all light conditions, Calvin Harris, and ‘poo girl’ who got herself wedged in a Leeds Festival toilet.

But this is a trend that has been going on for a while now. Those THINK! adverts on TV have always made me laugh, which is funny in itself because it’s the complete opposite to their intention. The ‘So, what’ll it be‘ barman got funnier every time, as did the ‘if you hit me at 30‘ girl, to the point that I would wait for that advert to come on and then mouth the words along with her.

But I don’t find these apparently horrific things funny because I’m some sort of weird unhinged psycho (ask my Mum’s severed head that I keep in the fridge if you don’t believe me), it’s because these adverts are hopelessly out of touch (especially when it comes to drink, drugs, or sex) and comically excessive.

They must be made by the same people who make Casualty, because the thinking is exactly the same. They hype things up and over emphasise their point to the extent that it crashes noisily through the invisible serious/funny barrier and becomes unintentionally hilarious. In Casualty, instead of conveying suspense, drama, and emotion via conventional methods like acting the director/producer/idiot has decided it’s better to have an actor crash through plate glass windows every five minutes. An episode is basically a sequence of bloody accidents, strung together in some half-arsed way that no one really cares about. Shock and awe is used as a substitute for things like plot, script, and acting ability.

But just like Casualty, these Government warning films are self-defeating because of their ridiculous shock tactics. You don’t get through to someone by shouting at them, you’re just going to scare the and give them a headache. But that doesn’t seem to bother the people at THINK! one bit and their mindset seems to be this – if we show horrific and terrible things happening to people who drink, or take drugs, or don’t tie their shoe laces properly, then we might just scare them enough so that they never do anything risky or interesting ever in their whole life.

If you believed these adverts you’d live your life in a constant state of paralytic nervousness. Getting into a car would be a terrifying ordeal. You’d be living in fear that if you forgot to put on your seat belt you might be catapulted head first into your mum’s head. If decided to have a drink to calm your splintered nerves you’d probably just want to stay at home and curled up in a fetal ball, just in case you ended up kicking your flat to pieces or killing a cute girl just by looking at her. And heaven forbid you ever thought about trying drugs, because as we all know by now, if you even think about drugs for too long then armed police will break down your bedroom door, arrest you, and whisk you off to a windowless cell to be remorselessly interrogated and tortured – Brazil style.

It’s just a good job that these adverts are so unwittingly funny and ridiculous, or I think they would actually do some serious damage to society.

As a footnote, this advert cost 2.3 million squids to make – where did that all go? The only thing I can think of is that they surgically altered those kids eyes for realz with extensive plastic surgery.

glemmie

hiiiiigh five! (see what i did there)

Hugo

Who brought the class warrior? You're a dick. My daddy who's a doctor can fix that chip on you're shoulder, although he's private.

Elizabeth Sankey

Mark got served!

Brad

Seen the new texting whilst driving short film shocker thing?

Now that's intense. Dead babies and everything.

abcdefg

"I think more money should be spent on places like this place on Cockburn street in edinburgh that teaches people who will inevitabley use them how to, and how do do it safley and properly, instead of everything seeming to be about preventation"
That is retarded.
Let them do it wrong and kill themsleves fucking smackheads!

button

The THINK! campaign is actually about dangerous driving not scaring people into sobriety. But I guess if you realised that you wouldn't be able to justify your mild, middle class drug use by claiming it as some kind of middle finger up to the establishment.

Nobody really cares if you shovel too many pills down your gullet, just try not to mow any unsuspecting bystanders down while you're at it please.

Boots

But if you DO hit a kid at 40mph rather than 30 she's more likely to die. If you do take pills your eyes DO go all saucer-like and the police DO know this and the sentences ARE the same for drink driving. The bug eyes advert doesn't even show anything bad happening at all, they just get pulled over. Not at all the same as Casualty or the 40mph girl.

The bartender advert fails because it took me about a year to work out what was going on.

The government make DON'T DO IT adverts because people get hurt. The UK has the highest number of kids dying in traffic accidents. People still drink drive, people still die and no one's listening. You're asking for a kind of respect that we frankly don't deserve. Even though I know that getting in cars with fucked up people is stupid, I've done it while knowing it's stupid. I wish the government could hire people to literally knock on people's doors and slap them in the face until they get the message that doing drugs/drinking and then driving and speeding are fucking stupid things to do. But they can't, so they make adverts. Glib articles like this wont save lives, but maybe that zombie kid and the cutie with the spaceman eyes might.

whoops

I don't think these adverts are a joke, or comical. You seen the Axa insurance roads safety ads they have in Ireland? Are they funny? Might I just point out, that if you can mouth the words with the little girl, then you've absorbed the message? The seat belt one is a bit redundant, cause everyone of our generation puts a seat belt on automatically. The changingman advert (btw the barman was in the IT Crowd episode where they go to the Theatre to see the play: "Gay" featuring such hit tunes as: "Willies, willies, I love willies.") highlights that more than one drink puts you over the limit. Most stuff about drugs is about prevention because they're illegal.

OD

This article has absolutely no substance. You criticise the advert but without offering any specifics as to why it's bad, beyond vague "lol they don't understand us kids, grow up grandad we're all doing it these days."

It's a fair advert that makes a valid point and is more reasonable than a lot of the scare tactics used in the other adverts you list. If you can't appeal to people's duty of care to other people, then appeal to the fact that they might get caught.

Steve

I think they should use the money to change all streets called Cockburn to something less stupid.

glemmietalks

Yeah, adverts are got so stupid I know people that go on the Talk to Frank site 'for the bants' wtf. The only thing ive ever been surprised by is in one advert about taking drugs at festivals it said the average festival goer sees 6 hour max music.. I think more money should be spent on places like this place on Cockburn street in edinburgh that teaches people who will inevitabley use them how to, and how do do it safley and properly, instead of everything seeming to be about preventation