MD Anderson Threatening Ad
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@Dashrender said:
Clearly this is a bad grammatical ad. But I think you're reading way to much into it.
See, that's what I feel you are doing. All I know is that the ad says nothing and you are working off of what you feel they would want you to know but not what the ad says. I'm reading nothing into it, that's the point. Getting anything from it means you have to read into it and add your own opinion rather than reading what the ad says itself.
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@Dashrender said:
Also, those that I've known that have cancer that are searching for answers will call anyone and everyone that they even think could possibly provide a solution... so yes I do think they will get calls.
But do they want calls? You are reading into it to feel that way. It's a reasonable option, but we don't know that for sure from the ad. And having gone through my mother having cancer, this would have done literally nothing. If a place was well known for cancer she would have gone on reputation, not chosen to call based solely on reading into the inability to write ad copy. That might be the worst reason for calling a medical facility ever. If I had a disease I'd want to know what medical professionals thought was a good facility and what had a good track record. That a cancer facility even needs to advertise should be cause for serious concern about it.
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Do these two lines say the exact same thing do you?
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@Dashrender said:
As for the Drs at the hospital. They don't write or even approve these ads. Some ad agency writes them.. and some board or CEO approves them. Now you personally may feel that this ad shows a systemic problem with that facility, and that's completely up to you (and the people on 9gag).
If I was a doctor there, I'd be pretty upset at this representation. But maybe they can't get discriminating doctors. They don't appear to be able to afford good advertising people. This is a pretty big blunder and super obvious.
But, like I said, if they need to advertise and aren't busy, likely they don't have good people (see other thread about how most companies can't have the good people.)
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@Dashrender said:
Do these two lines say the exact same thing do you?
At a quick glance, yes, because the striked out word is not visible without stopping and spending time to pay attention to it, something you cannot do with billboards typically.
If I take time to read it.... the first one makes zero sense. Because if cancer hasn't been defeated, it sounds like the threat has been shifted to something else. And if cancer has been defeated, what is it saying?
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@Dashrender said:
Do these two lines say the exact same thing do you?
I'd have to say no, they don't mean the same thing. But only because they didn't strikeout the ","
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If they meant to say that cancer was defeated, this doesn't imply it. If they meant that they are moving on, they forgot to mention what they are fighting instead of cancer.
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Also important to note: saw this billboard in Texas where "you" is not the same pronoun as it is in much of the country. In Texas the use of "you" alone always denotes the person to whom you are speaking singularly. It is not the general plural of English. Texas uses a Spanglish language change and their "you" usage is one of the things that is different. Using this sentence in Texas doesn't have the same sound as it does elsewhere. It's only in Texas that I've seen the ad.
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lol - I find this conversation amusing.
I don't find these two lines to be even remotely the same (the comma doesn't matter) when used in this context. Now, if this was on a paper being graded by a teacher, boss, etc, etc - fine they would more or less be the same sentence, but in this case the advertiser (in my opinion) is claiming that they are defeating cancer.
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
It's a grammatical nightmare, for the umpteenth time.
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This is an advertisement. The thing being threatened is cancer, not the patient. They are "wiping out cancer", as displayed with the red line crossing it off. Were it a grammatical correction, I would agree with you. It was probably posted on 9gag because it could certainly be taken that way, and its ambiguity is thus entertaining. However, I doubt that any reader with a double-digit IQ was actually scared by the ad and believes that AnMed is actively promoting the hunting down and killing of cancer patients. You take a look at it and view it in context. It makes perfect sense. Read between the lines. Oh, and when I said "anyone with a double-digit IQ", I was specifically not referring to people who post comments on 9gag...
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@art_of_shred said:
This is an advertisement. The thing being threatened is cancer, not the patient.
But the one thing that they go out of their way to say they are NOT threatening is cancer. It's the only clear thing definitely not being threatened.
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@art_of_shred said:
This is an advertisement. The thing being threatened is cancer, not the patient. They are "wiping out cancer", as displayed with the red line crossing it off. Were it a grammatical correction, I would agree with you. It was probably posted on 9gag because it could certainly be taken that way, and its ambiguity is thus entertaining. However, I doubt that any reader with a double-digit IQ was actually scared by the ad and believes that AnMed is actively promoting the hunting down and killing of cancer patients. You take a look at it and view it in context. It makes perfect sense. Read between the lines. Oh, and when I said "anyone with a double-digit IQ", I was specifically not referring to people who post comments on 9gag...
Remember I was pointing out how the ad is read.... quickly. The word CANCER is not visible to people reading it quickly at all. That something has been removed from the text is clear, what it is cannot be easily determined if you are passing by a billboard or airport ad.
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@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
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Hey, at least they spelled "cancer" correctly, and there's no "your" where it should be "you're". Honestly, that is better than 90% of everything I see out there anymore. It's just ridiculous.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
That IS how it works. It's how ads have been since, like, forever. I couldn't even count the number of times a word in an ad had a strike-through. The whole point of the strike-through in advertisement is to draw emphasis to that exact word. It's not about correct English; it's about grabbing attention.
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@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
That IS how it works. It's how ads have been since, like, forever. I couldn't even count the number of times a word in an ad had a strike-through. The whole point of the strike-through in advertisement is to draw emphasis to that exact word. It's not about correct English; it's about grabbing attention.
It does not grab attention. It covers up. This is not a magazine ad but a billboard ad. No amount of making hard to see or hard to read grabs attention. It literally makes the word nearly disappear. It only exists at all to people dissecting it and reading into it.
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@Dashrender said:
I don't find these two lines to be even remotely the same (the comma doesn't matter) when used in this context. Now, if this was on a paper being graded by a teacher, boss, etc, etc - fine they would more or less be the same sentence, but in this case the advertiser (in my opinion) is claiming that they are defeating cancer.
Okay, but without adding in personal injections of meaning, what do they mean? Either of them? If you aren't talking about YOU... what the heck IS it talking about?
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Using the strike out to mean "no longer" is a common use. That I'll give. But given the common way this is used for an ad like this.... it's not the meaning that @Dashrender is coming to. If you look at ads that do this, and I've seen a lot, they always follow the same pattern (without the weird threat.) And that usage would mean a change from being a cancer center to being a general hospital.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
That IS how it works. It's how ads have been since, like, forever. I couldn't even count the number of times a word in an ad had a strike-through. The whole point of the strike-through in advertisement is to draw emphasis to that exact word. It's not about correct English; it's about grabbing attention.
It does not grab attention. It covers up. This is not a magazine ad but a billboard ad. No amount of making hard to see or hard to read grabs attention. It literally makes the word nearly disappear. It only exists at all to people dissecting it and reading into it.
It must be your eyesight condition that makes it that hard to see. I have no trouble at all seeing that it says cancer and was stricken-through with a red line. Plain as day.
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@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
That IS how it works. It's how ads have been since, like, forever. I couldn't even count the number of times a word in an ad had a strike-through. The whole point of the strike-through in advertisement is to draw emphasis to that exact word. It's not about correct English; it's about grabbing attention.
It does not grab attention. It covers up. This is not a magazine ad but a billboard ad. No amount of making hard to see or hard to read grabs attention. It literally makes the word nearly disappear. It only exists at all to people dissecting it and reading into it.
It must be your eyesight condition that makes it that hard to see. I have no trouble at all seeing that it says cancer and was stricken-through with a red line. Plain as day.
You are not walking by it to the side in a moving airport area. Trust me, you don't see the word cancer where this ad is placed. Dominica checked it to in situ and agreed.
