smoking vs. suicidal thoughts.

This weekend, I was imprisoned (under my own will) in a home that had no cable. Now, while this might be a norm for all you people who think TV is the devil and/or the "intellectuals" out there, who are clearly better at living than I am, it was pretty much the apocalypse for me. But after the initial shock and hours of dvd, I adjusted. But what I found in between the regularly scheduled Sunday football games and tbs movies from the 90s was a slue of pharma ads. 

Pharma Ads, the beast that every ad school teacher told me to dodge. Sure, they pay alot of money...but you will forever be known as that creative who made the animated burly bugs that live under some poor consumer's toenail talk and walk. And you will be shunned by those "real" creatives. There is no road from Prilosec to Nike. But with that said...the thing that caught my eyes was the side effects that these ads so cleverly slipped in at the end of their spots, which is not uncommon. Pharma ads are notorious for filling the last 20 seconds of a 30 second spot with "possible side effects." They are usually something to the effects of flash diarrhea of temporary blindness in one eye. But the ad that absolutely scared the living sh*t out of me this Sunday was that of Chantex. So much so, that I remembered the name and looked it up first thing this morning. 

I can't find the ad on youtube, but Chantex is supposed to help you quit smoking. The ad used the age old metaphor of the race between the tortuous and the hare . While this, is the first thing that comes to my mind, the more educated consumer, probably got the hyperbole and thought it was clever. I found out through some research that I saw the second ad in a very controversial campaign (this being first) after it was discovered that the pills had some psychiatric side effects.  

The phrase the frightened me......"...this pill may cause depression and suicidal thoughts and behavior."

They just snuck that in there. With a cute picture of a rabbit on the screen they basically told all of America that developing a psychological disorder was better than smoking. And then at the end they stated a stat...."after 12 weeks, 44% of user reached their quitting goal."

And it probably true. And the other 66%...jumped to their death from a high rise window. 

But, I suppose that this strategy is better (morally speaking) than the previous "unbranded" approach which drove people to a website and not the drug. 

Read between the lines people.