Truth

[Z]

I hate the Truth commercials. You know which ones I am talking about. The anti-Big Tobacco commercials with the kids that basically tell you every week that you don't know what's best for yourself so you should listen to them.

So what do you think about the Truth commercials and the whole concept behind them. Is it morally justified to run those commercials constantly when you almost never ever see cigarette commercials anywhere?

For that matter, should that type of mentality be expanded to other subjects and mediums? If I don't like a company and their business practices, should I be allowed to publicly defame them on a regular basis?

I do not smoke cigarettes and I likely never will but the Truth commercials still end up pissing me off.

[Bloodcinder]

They piss me off because they engage in scaremongering and often fudge their "science" in the efforts to denouncing "Big Tobacco."

They also piss me off because they choose to ignore that "Big Tobacco" employs millions of people. My father works tangentially for a tobacco company. If not for tobacco and the people who buy it and the industries that it creates, I probably couldn't have (or at least couldn't have comfortably) gone to college or onward to grad school. Tobacco is essentially my livelihood while I'm still dependent on my parents.

"Big Tobacco" is people.

[deathofcheese]

I liked the old Truth commercials that just presented a few statistics (usually with references) and maybe a few claims by certain "Big Tobacco" execs which would have their bluffs called. Of course, they'd probably never show any response from the tobacco companies that they're attacking, but they certainly did succeed with making poignant commercials, even if they were outright attacks.

These new Truth commercials are largely scary, though. The one with the animated storks and emaciated babies? Ugh. Humorous, poignant, freaky as shit.

It's like they feel they're on a roll, and that more and more people listen to them now, so they can go all out with scare tactics and gross factor shit. Can someone tell me how that singing baby commercial was allowed by the FCC?

[The Moody Ronin]

Hate 'em with a passion. I don't even have to know the facts to know that they're exaggerating them, if not outright making them up. I get the feeling that they not only honestly believe that the evil tobacco companies are hellbent on picking your pockets while knifing you in the back, but they believe that that's a perfectly reasonable point of view that everybody should share.

They also piss me off because they choose to ignore that "Big Tobacco" employs millions of people. My father works tangentially for a tobacco company. If not for tobacco and the people who buy it and the industries that it creates, I probably couldn't have (or at least couldn't have comfortably) gone to college or onward to grad school. Tobacco is essentially my livelihood while I'm still dependent on my parents.

"Big Tobacco" is people.

...so it's o.k. so long as there's profit to be made from it...? Yeah, yeah, I know that's not what you meant, but it is almost all that you said...>.>

[Bloodcinder]

That idea isn't conveyed anywhere in my post.

[SpaceProg]

They annoy me, but it's an annoyance I'm able to ignore for the most part, so most all they get is an eyeroll as far as a reaction from me.

[Charlie]

As an off-and-on smoker who doesn't give a damn, and a person who can make up his own mind, I hate the commercials. I hate the people IN the commercials. I hate what they do to get people to listen to them. Fuck them.

[Gio Takahashi]

I don't think they're bad, sometimes they get overboard, but the message is generally clear, at times. the older truth commercials were way better.

[SpaceProg]

I'm not a smoker, but I know quite a few of them. They don't work. If anything they just get laughed at.

[Seegtease]

Can anybody post any examples of some of the worst commercials? I can't remember anything being hideous about them, but I may not have been paying attention.

[Bloodcinder]

The underweight babies commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmAI7KQC0aI).

I think the annoyance of the Truth ads has come with their new "Sunny Side of Truth" campaign. Which basically means they indulge in lame non-sequitur as an attempt to be "edgier" than they were before.

[Auntie Debbie]

I'm for anything that keeps pollutants and killing chemicals out of peoples' lungs.

[Z]

I'll grant to them that their intention may be good. However, they still irk me.

http://www.rateitall.com/i-41427-truth-commercials-anti-tobacco-commercials.aspx

Just reading some of the comments from that site ^ it would appear as though the commercials are pissing people off to such an extent that it's making people want to start (or go back to) smoking just in defiance.

Did anyone see the South Park episode on smoking (With Rob Reiner)? I like how Stone and Parker can just give people the common sense take on everything. I wish I could find the lyrics to that song they sing in the tobacco factory.

[Bloodcinder]

With a hidey lidey lidey and a hidey lidey lay,
We work and we make cigarettes all hidey lidey day
So folks can get a breaky from their stressful lidey lives
And relax with the cigarettes we make all day and night.

I like to have a cigarette every now and then.
It makes me feel calmer when the day is at an end.
And if it gives me cancer when I'm eighty I don't care.
Who the hell wants to be ninety anyway?

[Z]

Haha, that's the one.

That's not to say I think cigarettes are harmless, either. They clearly have harmful effects in the long run but, I mean, we know that already. It's written right on the packs. We don't need a bunch of snobby kids shoving our noses is the hypothetical "poo"

[reginacroft]

I dunno... the songs get stuck in my head and the "facts" were depressing.

Usually if they bother me either I change the channel or I ignore them.

[The Moody Ronin]

I'm for anything that keeps pollutants and killing chemicals out of peoples' lungs.

You really think that they do, though...? I've never smoked a day in my life, so maybe I think differently than their target audience, but I can't imagine those commericals making any one that sees them want to do anything but just not like the people making them.

Kinda like Geico commercials...>.>

[SpaceProg]

Hey, I like that Gecko... He's almost as good as the AFLAC duck.

[Gio Takahashi]

a lot of the Geico commercial are funny, but they do have the tendency to go overboard with their ongoing jokes. The caveman is one of them.

[deathofcheese]

none of the Geico commercial are funnyFixed it for you.

Really, only a couple waaaaaaay back when were funny. Maybe the first couple caveman commercials (before they got overplayed to death) were funny, but they're certainly not funny now. Oh, remember the squirrel commercial? That one was funny. Most of the Gecko ones, notsomuch.

[Seegtease]

I thought the squirrel one was the worst. I still like Geico commercials.

Also, that babies commercial you linked to, BC, kind of creeps me out. It's so tastelessly done.

[Gio Takahashi]

The current trend of Geico commercial is just so old and so overdone (The nature old guy and the cavemen jokes, didn't they make a fail series based on the cavemen?)

Few years ago when they were doing the "Good news" gag, it was a running gag among my friends where we do the same geico joke to each other. Now we've been doing the "could've had a V8" when we smack each other in the forehead every now and then.

Yes, cape coral is that boring.

[Auntie Debbie]

You really think that they do, though...? I've never smoked a day in my life, so maybe I think differently than their target audience, but I can't imagine those commericals making any one that sees them want to do anything but just not like the people making them.

Kinda like Geico commercials...>.>

Dunno. They beat the heck out of the commercials for cigarettes which I can still recite and sing, and they've been off the air now long now?

[deathofcheese]

You mean you don't find this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL1uFjSbvnA) funny at all? I'll admit, it's just about lost its novelty with me because of how old it is and how much they played it, but it's still one of the best (read: one of the least sucky) commercials that Geico put out.

I found this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHvZazd4IM&feature=related) commercial too, it's not from the Sunny Side of Truth, but it's still a Truth commercial.

I'm starting to get the feeling that the making of a Truth commercial is approached from the mindset that smoking was one of those accepted things that people were just understood to do. That might have been the case in previous years, but I don't really get that feeling anymore. Now, it's more of a sign of rebellion, a sign of badassness. Smoking is one of those things portrayed that "takes the edge off". That might be, especially because there's enough in tobacco that truly relaxes you (part of it being oxygen deprivation).

I don't know. With the ad campaigns of the last 10~20 years, I think the public has been given enough warning about what cigarettes and other tobacco products will do to you. Now, it's evolved to the mindset of, "I'll do what I want because it's my body, thankyouverymuch." Like people having unprotected sex because they don't like the feeling (or lack of feeling, I don't really have any experience in this matter) associated with condoms, never mind the risk of STDs or HIV/AIDS.

[Seegtease]

If you go by "we all know about them by now" mindset, you might as well say Coke and Pepsi and Doritos shouldn't make commercials. I mean, who doesn't know about those? Yet the marketing experts apparently still see a need somehow.