Anti Smoking Ad Analysis

Anti-smoking advertising campaign: to be or not to be

One is to analyze a recent campaign advertisement by the Public Health England, which received a lot of controversies in the media. The advertisement encompasses a picture of a possibly middle-aged white man smoking a cigarette that is oozing with flesh-like sores. The picture is also inscribed with the words “Every 15 cigarettes you smoke cause a mutation that can become cancer.” Below the inscription another one is added, “Search “Smoke free” for free quitting support.” Essentially, the purpose of the advertisers was to create urgency in the matter of stopping cigarette smoking. In this context, the department was playing the role since it is part of its responsibility to protect the public

The only claim posed on it that every 15 cigarettes a person smokes causes mutation that can become a cancer, must convince the audience that this view is reasonable and based on real facts. However, no sufficient evidence to support this claim and the image are represented that throws into confusion the audience. On the one side the organization is highly respected, but on the other side appealing only to people’s feelings cannot lead to logical conclusions of the audience. Furthermore, the designers of the advertisement do not use any other opinions and counter-arguments, supposing that this view is the one and no other options are available. This may be referred as a fallacy of character or dogmatism and destroy trust existing between the author and the

The first one is the desire to make a conclusion on the basis of a very little evidence. To draw valid inferences the author must always have sufficient evidence and qualify its claims appropriately. The second fallacy is a false authority which means that the Public Health England is a sufficient warrant for believing a claim. The power of the text is less capable of persuading others solely on the grounds of authority. Therefore, most of the fallacies in this particular sphere are intentional. One more fallacy is a failure to see an alternative. Given the negative implications of cigarette smoking, smoke-free campaigns such as the one used in this analysis have had to be aggressive. They have to create mental images that a smoker will continually associate with smoking. In the past, such campaigns targeted on looks showing how a young man in his 20s looked like a 40-year-old, but rather than create the anticipated effected, most smokers were not touched by the commercial as it did not look like truth. In this case, not all 20-year olds look like 40-year-olds because of smoking; therefore, smoking cannot be harmful to your health. In another spectrum, when statistics are utilized such as showing every one in three people who smoke end up with a terminal health complication, most individuals are inclined to assume that they are the exception to the rule: genetic