Don’t you sometimes want to mess with billboards and ad campaigns? Sometimes advertising brings out the subversive in me and I find myself tempted to climb up onto a billboard with a can of spray paint to add a few words of truth.
In the mornings, I cycle past an armoury where they display recruitment posters for the military. “Strong, Proud,” the poster proclaims above a picture of a young soldier in uniform, and I want to add at the bottom “and sometimes dead.”
Beneath the multitude of ads for the latest cell phone, I want to print “Seriously. Isn’t your old one good enough?” or “Get real – you need to watch TV on your CELL PHONE? Perhaps a visit to an addictions counselor is in order!?”
Under the ads for the latest exercise equipment – the ones with the buxom babes and bronzed bodybuilders, I want to say “Come on – you KNOW you’d have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for plastic surgery if you want THAT body. Buy the exercise equipment and you’ll be out a coupla hundred dollars and you’ll STILL have your old body!”
On the clothing ads… “Take a good look in your closet. Do you really NEED more clothes?” or “It may look good on the model, but it will look like a SACK on you!”
Under “Wal-mart. Always low prices,” I’d put “Abusing people all over the world so YOU can enjoy low prices.”
Fast food restaurants: “Do you want to add THIGHS with that?” or “Bring us your kids – we’ll make them fat and lazy.”
And speaking of the “Truth in Advertising”, check out this hilarious video clip.
And here’s another fun link about the truth in tobacco advertising.
What truth would you add to ad campaigns?