You’re hooked: A "boundary-pushing" anti-smoking ad

The blogger you linked is quite put out by the billboard – apparently in hid view the ad “bullies” smokers, who mostly really want to quit, with the disturbing imagery. He questions whether there is any reason to believe these ads help people stop smoking.

It’s an arresting image to be sure, and I can see why he would be enraged that smug non-smookers would think of him as a hooked fish with an ugly lip, and why he might feel bad about himself and have to go light up.

I have seen smoking do rather much worse things to smoker’s lips. And he might ponder for a moment if the ads are indeed aimed more at the likes of him and not at the object of smoking prevention.

The ads are meant to make youngsters take notice of how smoking is rather better not begun. Ads that make smokers look stupid and ugly actually do have an effect on that population.

Funny thing, those teenagers don’t tend to take old people with rotted off faces or jars displaying blackened smokers lungs seriously…because, oh, they will have plenty of time to quit before they are affected by any such troubles and they are immune anyway, and there will be a cure by the time they reach their dotage….

But show a smoker with a nasty ugly painful hook in the lip with the promise of an unbreakable habit…that the young folks will remember.