The Smoking Scourge

Recently, I came across this advertisement on you tube.

Quit Victoria is dedicated to eliminating the pain, illness and suffering caused by tobacco.

The current campaign titled ‘Everybody Knows’ produced by the Cancer Institute NSW, presents a series of memorable scenes from existing campaigns. It shows the range of health consequences caused by smoking, and reinforces that smoking will lead to one of these diseases.

Importantly the television commercial recognizes that smokers know the health consequences of smoking but they still smoke, highlighting the fact that quitting smoking can be hard and that smokers may need help to break their habit once and for all.

The ‘Everybody Knows’ advertisement will air in metropolitan and regional Victoria in conjunction with the ‘Bronchoscopy’ advertisement from January 18 - February 14.

This is yet another campaign to scare smokers into quitting.It gives smokers a preview of the effects of long-term smoking on their physical appearance and a chance to look into their future.
I perceive that this advertisement can be very astounding to a person. It could play into their vanity a little bit once they realize what smoking has an effect on besides the usual things like cancer and lung diseases.I think this campaign could be categorized into the selecting process of perception.

"Perception is the process of selecting,organizing and interpreting information in order to give personal meaning to the communication we receive."
- Seiler and Beall

Hence, selection is a critical aspect of perception which in turn influences our communication and behavior. This campaign showcases the qualities of selection such as intensity,novel stimuli and contrast. It includes a man who breathes through a hole in his throat, a woman who is missing four fingers because of smoking, and operations to remove fatty deposits from the brain and amputate a gangrenous foot.Other campaigns have matchbooks that carry various grisly images with the stark words, “Cigarettes Are Eating You Alive.” The “Gum Disease” version shows decayed teeth, yellowed and blackened. Other matchbooks show large, painful tumors and smoke-ravaged lungs. The images that are shown are vehement in nature and that of an extreme degree which attracts the viewers attention. It illustrates the hazards of smoking with a goal to effective communication i. e to reduce the number of smokers worldwide.

Views:

Dr. Susan D. Karabin, the immediate past president of the American Academy of Periodontology, said in a phone interview:

"I applaud the health department for doing this. These images are accurate: Smoking interferes with healing, with the immune system, and if you have periodontal disease — a chronic, low-grade infection — it exacerbates it, and makes the body less able to deal with that infection. Smoking is also considered an independent risk factor for bone loss. Smokers lose more teeth and have worse periodontal disease than nonsmokers."

Dr. Karabin, who has a private practice on the Upper East Side and is not involved in the city’s ad campaign, added, “Unfortunately, I think it does take scare tactics to get people to stop smoking.”

For further reference on 'Quit Victoria' campaign you can visit this site:

http://www.quit.org.au/browse.asp?ContainerID=1639