I'm not allowed to put certain things in certain bins; I must eat my five-a-day; I should be walking everywhere; and a floating Mr. Earth, with a Scottish accent is telling me to turn off my plugs at night. Have a look at the advert on their website! I am overwhelmed by all the British Government adverts telling us what to do and how we should do it. The British public are bombarded by these campaigns daily.
Public Relations is used to change attitudes. Leon Festinger's theory on cognitive dissonance is relevant here. Johanna Fawkes says,
Creating cognitive dissonance in an audience can be a powerful tool for disrupting habits of thought and consequently increasing the chances of altering their behaviour. Campaigns that use shock tactics can jolt an audience out of a complacent attitude.An example of this, is a shocking advert used in Ireland for dangerous driving. It is pretty horrific, just warning you!
And another one, which nearly had me reaching for the sick bucket when I first experienced this TV advert! Be prepared!
Looking at the Scottish Government's campaign with the floating Mr. Earth, it is truly bizarre to me, in fact I'm totally freaked out by it! However, the message does get across. In the most recent campaign, he just tells people to turn off switches at night, this is a small and achievable thing to do, rather than shocking the audience that they must act to save the world by hugging a tree. The more ethical the campaign is, the more likely people will change their ways. But seriously though, Scottish Government, enough of the floating Mr. Earth - you are preventing children from their sleep!!
What I want to know from you ... Have any of these campaigns worked for you? Would they make you change your attitude?
The 'Get a Prescription' advert is possibly thee most disgusting thing I have ever seen. However it does get its point across.
ReplyDeleteOn the whole, yes it would make me change my attitude. I believe global warming is affecting us all and we must do something to stop it.
However what people forget is that their new wooden dining room table and chairs just came from the Amazon rainforest. Where is the campaign for that? We as an economy are still buying in to the destruction of our world whether it is through television, computers or tropical medicines.
Sadly the main source of regeneraion for our planet will simply take several hundreds of years to re-boot in 21st century jargon.