Missing Links

Did you know smoking causes your friends to grow sausage-link arms?
Well, it does...according to the latest campaign from the New Mexico Department of Health. To confuse consumers even more, they've also created a website. This is about as close to "false advertising" as you can get in this business. Well done guys.



The real lesson learned here is if you smoke too much while creating an advertisement, bad things really do happen. And clients have to pay for them.

Ratting Out NYC

Washington DC recently launched a campaign claiming that NYC has rats the size of house cats because they aren't strict about food and drinks in the subway. New York subway tunnels might have a lot of rats, but I've never heard of anyone say they've seen a rat inside an actual subway car (or even seen a rat the size of a house cat). I would imagine food on the subways is a small contributor to the rat problem. That's an awfully slippery slope DC.

A True Scarevertising Agency

Want to create your own scary campaign? I found this agency called Scare Factory Advertising. Honestly I don't know what they actually do for sure, but it made me laugh and seemed to fit in with this blog. I'm definitely not recommending them by any means.

Foul Uni-Ball

A Scary Coincidence

Who knew smoking was worse than the biggest terrorist attack of all time? Apparently, a few different anti-smoking groups who released the same exact campaign six months apart. I imagine advertisers will continue leveraging this terrible tragedy in years to come. We'll probably be seeing a lot more twin tower visuals just like this one. Scaring people in an original way must be a tough job. There's only so many iconic tragedies you can use to your advantage.































What about the Nazi's? Surely there's an anti-smoking campaign in there somewhere.

Dirt Napping

Land Transport New Zealand and the NZ Police remind locals that you shouldn't drive while sleeping, nor operate a motorized bed, or something to that extent. When people say "I want to die in my sleep", I don't think this is what they have in mind. Though these ads are hard to take too seriously (because they are pretty funny), they certainly got my attention. In fact, this could be one of my favorite scarevertising campaigns of the year. I just hope I don't have any nightmares tonight that begin with my bed cruising top-down on a beautiful open New Zealand highway.




































The people who brought us Lord of the Rings and Flight of the Conchords have raised the bar once again.

Creatures of a Bad Habit

There's been a surplus of anti-smokeless tobacco ads lately. Though they always come up with interesting tactics to scare kids, the facts don't always add up. One ad says "Chewing tobacco has three times the nicotine of cigarettes. And will kill you just as dead." Not that I support chewing tobacco, but I do know that nicotine is possibly the most harmless chemical found in cigarettes. It's really all the other chemicals that kill. Nicotine is highly addictive, but essentially harmless to tobacco users. We don't get any other statistics to back up their "kill you just as dead" statement, besides the fact all degrees of "dead" are basically the same.













A slightly more effective ad could be "Chewing tobacco has a million times the nicotine of a hand grenade. And will kill you just as dead." Chew on that.

Crash of '08

MADD drops another depressing graduation campaign on the class of '08, hoping to keep high school kids out of their parent's liquor cabinet. The line says, "Don't make it a grad to forget." Come to think of it, I don't really remember my graduation and there were no car accidents involved. It was actually a great time so I'd have to disagree with that tagline.













By the way, she proably shouldn't be driving while holding roses and a diploma.

Debtvertising

Normally I don't consider scare advertising with humor "scarevertising", but this website is so poorly made and unfunny that it's actually scary. "Keep it in your pants" is a nice thought for credit card responsibility, but a not-so-great promotion. The site challenges you to make a PSA about the dangers of "debt disease" (which is a made up sickness), and one of the prizes you win is an ugly shirt that further advertises their cause. So basically you're making an ad for a chance to win an ad you can wear on your chest.














Remember, together we can put an end to made up diseases that have been shamelessly overused in advertising for over five years now. I would've preferred a caveman or ninja concept instead...maybe even Chuck Norris.

Mac Attack

In what's possibly the first print ad to be designed without Adobe CS, this ad campaign for Mac computer support arranges desktop folders into scary images. Other noteworthy executions include a shark preying on a lone folder and a folder arrangement that looks like a space invaders screen shot. I know a computer crash can ruin your day, but I would've preferred an execution that tries to inject some humor into the situation rather than this depressing visual.













I would love to hear the "Mac Guy" defend this one.