The Difference Between Powerful & Disturbing Health Adverts

Because the vast majority of healthcare and life science products cannot be advertised directly to consumers, marketing efforts and budgets are typically used instead to promote important and related causes.

Many people will remember a campaign, either in the form of a public information film or an advert imploring people to either be careful, check for signs of disease or avoid a habit that could be killing them.

Anti-smoking adverts are a very common example of this, and whilst some opt for a more whimsical approach, others attempt to scare their audiences straight using powerful and somewhat frank imagery.

However, determining where the line is between expressing an important message in a powerful way and going far beyond the bounds of good taste and into disturbing territory is a very difficult challenge for many organisations to face, and some do not get the balance correct.

Some examples are exceptionally powerful such as Dentsu’s Meiji campaign, which features beautifully detailed images of the immune system displayed on billboards and posters that cannot help but draw the eye.

Other examples of powerful and effective imagery that did prove to be more controversial include “Rain Changes Everything”, a road safety advert featuring a billboard that bleeds when it rains.

A similar approach is found with many anti-smoking adverts, most notably the advert Hooked, which graphically depicted people impaled by fish hooks in their mouths and was at that point the most complained advert in the history of the Advertising Standards Agency.

Whilst the ASA ultimately upheld the complaint in part, it was also an exceptionally effective campaign precisely because it was disturbing and stark.

It is a fine line, however, and sometimes adverts that go too far into the violent and exploitative are unacceptable.

The 1977 public information film Apaches is perhaps the most infamous example, intended to showcase the dangers of farms but instead becoming a graphic horror film more reminiscent of the Final Destination series than anything that attempts to educate.