The Ad Council: Caring Enough To Keep You Afraid
Question: Are you terrified enough to make sure your family is protected? The Ad Council wants to know.
In an effort to further justify the need for homeland security, the Ad Council has sacrificed a rotation of their popular Arbor Day commercials to air a campaign that had i not just gotten a DVR could have possibly convinced me to stop watching television completely.
I know I’m not the only one who gets pissed when these things air.
You’ve seen it. There’s the little girl eating cereal, asking you, “what do I do mommy? do you have a plan for when the Shiites send a car bomb to my elementary school?” It would serve better as an anti-choking campaign since it’s induced vomiting in more than one occasion at my house.
Now, I’m all for preparedness, serious. I (this is no exaggeration) have at least one zombie attack dream a week. And 9 out of 10 times when my mind goes idle I begin strengthening my escape plan for when the undead rise. But, dammit, I know the difference between a PSA and a scare tactic.
Just how many Americans die each year from terrorist attacks? Granted, 9/11 is not to be discounted, but it was an incident- not a trend. And I know that the threat is still out there, BUT this girl is evil. She’s not there to get me prepared, she’s there to keep the fear of terrorism alive because the frickin RAINBOW of DEATH isn’t doing the trick anymore.
Lots of people die of smoking. Lots of people die of crib death. Lots of people die in car accidents and heart attacks. Do that many attacks happen each year that it would seriously make a difference if my family had an escape plan? LOTS of people have been dying in an unpopular, poorly planned, possibly illegal war- if only there was a way to prepare for THAT.
If I had the time I’d root around and find out if there’s an explanation for this. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the whole campaign was actually being funded by the manufacturers of duct tape and canned goods.
Of course now that I’ve said all this we all know what’s going to happen. Al Qaeda is totally going to blow up a dirty bomb right on my porch- and I have no plan. How embarrassing will that be?
March 9th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
Since I realize that my best days are behind me, I’m just going to take something I wrote back in 2003 for my response. It really works better with the picture, but the articulate writing and genius is still undeniable:
“This Friday, Vice President Dick Cheney (Shown here after taking a bite of really hot spaghetti) reiterated the government’s belief that another terrorist attack is imminent, warning of ”a single day of horror”. When asked to offer ways to prepare for this day, Cheney suggests that everyone live their lives counting down the seconds to their inevitable slaughter. Despite Friday’s comments from the vice president, however, the terror alert level remains at yellow, or elevated (level 3 out of 5). I personally asked the vice president, that if the terror alert is three out of five when an unavoidable nuclear attack is approaching, when will the alert level be raised to, oh, I don’t know, red? Or bright red? Like blood. Cheney, being inside the t.v. and out of my current shouting range was most likely unable to hear my question and responded only with silence.”
March 10th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
I totally agree with you on this. We lose far more people to car accidents, cancer, diabetes, etc. than we do to terrorism.
I have not seen this commercial yet, as I’ve spoiled myself with my DVR and rarely watch anything “live” anymore to avoid them.
March 11th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
This is a clever joke, right? Y’all aren’t REALLY running commercials with cute kids asking about Shiites coming for you in rigged cars…right?
March 11th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
If this little girl spent less time eating cereal and more time defending our country we wouldn’t need these commercials. I think that’s your point right? Sure we all want to sit around and eat cereal all day but there are alot of evil things out there like nuclear weapons, Arabs, and the ESPN original series “Tilt.” It’s time to grow up sweety, what have you done to stop Tilt’s tight cold grip on our country? That’s what I thought, shut up then.
March 12th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
I’ve never seen that particular add but if I had I’m sure there would have been a lot of puking at my house as well. The add that I see the most of that really gets me is the one where the son is telling his dad that he should go into the forces, because his dad taught him so well. I just sort of shake my head, because most of the parent that I know just want their kids the hell home and far far away from any war zone.
June 30th, 2005 at 7:27 am
not to mention that the “terrorism” in question was avoidable, had Bush not been looking for a reason to invade Oil-Land(TM)….
poor innocent child, being used as a tool of the right wing….
so sad….whatever happened to Mikey?