A lesson learned ? A hooking stupid idea

On Friday, January 19, 2007 in post Hooked ? .... or Horrified ? Lord Patel wrote about complaining to the Advertsiing Standards Authority about an unpleasant ad which was aimed at smokers on behalf of an NHS £8 Mn. No Smoking program and pointed out that ..

9.1 No marketing communication should cause fear or distress without good reason. Marketers should not use shocking claims or images merely to attract attention.

On Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Hooked ...Line and Sinker by the Advertising Standards Authority reported that the ASA upheld the complain - the first Government ad to be banned for 5 years.

The campaign triggered 774 complaints. The “Get Unhooked” campaign and was created by Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy and ran across television, poster, national press and magazines, and online. More than 150 parents said that the posters had scared their kids, aged between two and 15 - the NHS claims that , "The posters were deliberately not placed near schools" - so they were evidently aware of the potential to dstress children.

The NHS Provides the following figures -Since the launch of the campaign, 83,606 smokers phoned the NHS Smoking Helpline, 545,564 had visited the gosmokefree website, 195,000 had had interactions (?) with the TV pages and 6,743 had made contact via SMS. No follow up figures are available. £8Mn (including production costs) well spent ?

Today the ASA announce it was the most complained about advertisement of the year 2007.