The party’s over?
The new anti-drugs campaign - largely focussed on cocaine - has a couple of problems.
Firstly, the ad that features a balloon popping over and over is, ironically, the kind of thing that would drive someone to substance abuse.
Secondly, the slogan it reveals - The Party’s Over - represents a preachy, finger-wagging attitude that people only bristle against. The radio ads are pretty bad - badly acted, badly scripted - but the slogan might actually suggest the wrong thing: that a party’s only a party with drugs. It’s a “right now folks, time to go home to your beds and be responsible citizens” message of a killjoy authority.
Besides, having complained about the “same aul’ jargon” last week, what does the minister with responsibility for drugs, Pat Carey think about a campaign that, despite the information leaflets and website, is largely hinged on the kind of aul’ jargon that has proven useless in the past?
Firstly, the ad that features a balloon popping over and over is, ironically, the kind of thing that would drive someone to substance abuse.
I am freebasing as I write this.
Comment by Twenty Major | February 14, 2008 at 11:34 amThe radio ad annoys me but the online ad here drives me crazy with that bloody popping.
Not an ad break can go by without some public service warning in it, such as the “ask the nice doctor if he’s washed his hands” or my favourite – the one about “not ignoring sell-by dates”.
They are so patronising but it seems to be policy that when presented with a crisis like the cocaine “explosion” – the default action is to commission a shed load of advertising that looks and sounds like it has been written by committee. There may not be enough money to pay nurses but the HSE had plenty of money in its advertising budget.
That said, the Hot Press ad is starting to look like a work of genius next to the Party’s Over.
Comment by Ivor | February 14, 2008 at 12:11 pm‘the default action is to commission a shed load of advertising that looks and sounds like it has been written by committee.’
totally agreed. Obviously it’s a lot easier for the bureaucrats to set up a few meetings and sign off on a PR campaign, than it is to do any useful work. The HSE is the leading proponent of this tactic…
Comment by Justin | February 14, 2008 at 12:27 pmI think you’ve both hit the nail on the head, in that there is a sense that a high-profile ad campaign is somehow an efficient tactic. It allows them to bling themselves to the fact that the real hard work would come in making hard, radical decisions.
Comment by Shane | February 14, 2008 at 1:01 pmWhen I saw the ad, I wondered if they waited until there was talk of a ISEQ losses and decline in property price before running a copyline that chided folk for their fool-hardy avarice during boom times.
Comment by markg | February 14, 2008 at 3:42 pm‘Just say no’ campaigns don’t work. These new ads are crap. Most anti-drugs campaigns are completely redundant, people will do whatever they want regardless. The only thing that might vaguely work is educating people about drugs. It makes sense to tell people “if you’re going to take coke, don’t swallow it; if you’re going to take pills, this is the amount of water you should drink; this is what you should do when a friend ODs; be aware of what crazy things can be in the drugs you buy.” But nobody in the relevant authorities has the balls to do that, because it would be admitting what most people know to be the reality: that drugs are a constant background noise so many people’s lives.
If Pat Carey honestly thinks having a balloon popping on Ireland.com is going to stop people doing coke then… well then, I just don’t know what to say.
Comment by UnaRocks | February 14, 2008 at 5:43 pmWell I’d like to say that before the Hot Press/ HSE ads were broadcast I was blissfully ignorant of the dangers of balloons. Perhaps banning them would solve the drugs problem?
Comment by Brock Landers | February 15, 2008 at 9:21 amMeanwhile, heart attack stats continue to fall:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0214/1202938330598.html
Comment by Vandala | February 15, 2008 at 1:17 pm