"If there is a message to be conveyed to the public, please stick to the facts. Examples include: all 'Frank' advertising which scaremonger; the adverts concerning road tax and benefit fraud which present the system as a big brother style inescapable net; the anti-speeding campaign which uses a child actress to describe you killing her with a car. If the cause is truly righteous, then there is no need to try and influence people using psychology. We have all been brought up to resist this kind of propagandists' tactics, and to use these tactics is a violation. No wonder the mental health of the nation is going down the tubes."
As I said probably yesterday about charity adverts: I haven't seen these adverts, so I may be talking rubbish. But to my way of thinking, people need to be shocked about some things; none of these sound like completely unreasonable things to be "shocking" about.
All adverts "influence people using psychology", and even a non-"shocking" advert about speeding or benefit fraud or whatever will none the less use "psychology". And I don't think we have been "brought up to resist propagandits' tactics" - have we? I don't think I have, anyway.
And the line "No wonder the mental health of the nation is going down the tubes" renders me all-but-speechless in its Green Inkery.
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