The Meth Project

When looking for inspiration for an ad campaign Ive been working on, I found a series of jarring ads for a campaign against crystal meth. I was actually surprised that these ads could run on television or billboards due to the gritty depictions of violence and prostitution, but clearly this was the point - to shock the audience into hearing their message.













This is an excellent example of advertising that pushes boundaries and takes risks in an appropriate way. Their tagline "Not Even Once" sends a strong message to the target audience which is predominantly kids who havent tried meth and who will likely face peer pressure to do so.

The TV spots almost play out like mini horror movies, I don't know whether I support the messages being sent but given the circumstances, I would say that it's a necessary evil. Check out these spots, these are two of the more straightforward ones, others include references to girls selling their bodies for meth and children abusing their parents. Hardly suitable for daytime television.

Superbowl 2008

While I may not have strapped my brain into a machine to test the efficiency of the advertisements during the 2008 super bowl, I can definitely say that I was impressed with the diversity and creativity shown in their execution.

I find it difficult to summarize any one overriding theme, as many different subjects are discussed such as valentines day, self-help and general silliness. By and large the commercials were comedic in format and fairly well thought out conceptually. My favorite ads came from Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO Worldwide, and Weiden & Kennedy.

I can definitively say that the 'Bob's house' ad from BBDO is my favorite ad of the superbowl season. The ad was targeted to a growing demographic of Deaf individuals, and was shot entirely in ASL(American Sign Language). No audio was used and even though I 'speak' passable ASL I was thankful that the ad was subtitled for people not fluent in sign language.
The ad seemed to be a branding piece for EnAble; a division of PepsiCo, as it was not intended to promote a product, but educate people and raise awareness of Deaf culture in a fun way.

My runner up for favorite would be between the career builder ads from Weiden & Kennedy(for their simultaneous depiction of one character as both hero and victim) , and the tide to go interview ad by Saatchi & Saatchi (Because they obscured all conversation and the ad was twice as effective).