Lick

http://ydouthink.com/tvandradio.php
-Lick-
The anti-smoking campaign advertisements presented by “Ydouthink” are always very “out there”. They always have weird things that happen and they are always things that you would never actually see happen. In this add this girl goes around and literally licks everything, including her cat, a plant, a trashcan lid, the ground, a grill, a swing set, etc. (basically everything she sees). She even licks this dirty gross fly swatter that was in the garbage. This ad is so gross and disgusting and I always shiver when I see it, while saying “ew” in my head.

The purpose of this argument to tell people different circumstances that would happen to you if you smoked. In this ad the girl licks all these gross dirty things and then it says at the end of the ad, “isn’t smoking just as disgusting?” This is meant to compare smoking with disease-licking. In my opinion I totally agree with this ad and I think smoking is disgusting and is stupid. I can’t stand smoke, I always cough when I’m around people who do it, and I don’t hang out with anyone who does. That’s good that none of my friends smoke then.

The audience is basically everyone. Anyone who watches the commercial would see it. It’s probably mostly for younger people that may try smoking out because of all sorts of reasons. This company wants to show anyone who does smoke, or anyone who is thinking about trying it that smoking is stupid and very bad for you. They don’t go and say that smoking will kill you or give you cancer or rot your teeth, but to get people’s attention, they want to show extremes so they have commercials like this.

This has a few different appeals to it. It uses pathos/ethical appeals by saying that it’s gross to smoke and gross to lick garbage cans. You could argue that there is a little logical appeal to it to, because you would morally and logically not lick the fly swatter or trash can lid, so why would you morally or logically smoke? You wouldn’t.

The company that makes these ads, the anti-smoking company YDOUTHINK? has made so many ads regarding smoking being stupid. I picked this one (Lick) because I think it’s one of the most extremes, and when I see other commercials, I never pay that much attention to it as to this one. It’s just gross. I know I keep saying it, but it really is. GROSS!

The claim in this argument is the fact that smoking is stupid and it’s comparing smoking to how bad licking trash and a cat is. They don’t mention any type of poll or numbers to make it a stronger argument, so logically this argument is not that strong at all. There isn’t much logic to this at all. How are they going to compare smoking with licking everything. They can’t. But somehow, I’m guessing by emotional appeal, it still is affective and it still works.

I think another thing that makes the argument work is the fact that the video starts really close to the girl’s face, and then kind of spreads out. That way the reader, or in this case, the person watching the commercial sees what she is actually doing. It also starts really slow and then eventually goes really fast. It’s a cool technique, and they definitely get their point across.

So what do you think of this ad? Have you ever seen this ad before? I’ve seen it a bunch of times, but I don’t know if it influences you guys in the same ways as it does me. Should I have talked about a different commercial they offer? Or do you think this one is a good one?