MD Anderson Threatening Ad
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Just realized this is a Texas ad. MD Anderson is at UT. Which explains a lot.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@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.
All I am seeing is the one in the OP here. It's very clearly readable in that ad. This entire thread feels about the equivalent of having to explain a knock-knock joke.
Yes, like I said, if we put it up for discussion you get a totally different reading experience that you cannot use as a basis of comparison. If you have lots of time to look at it, read it and think about it it seems likely that they probably meant this as an attack on cancer that was just done poorly. But even there, I'm not 100% sure now that we know that. That they are a general purpose hospital is an extremely possible option.
But let me tell you, having seen many of these, ALL you get is the weird threat until you see enough and happen to have time to stop and stare at one to figure out what one threat after another (all different) are written on the walls.
You might want to be a little careful with the "we" comment. Thus far, you're the only "we" in this thread. I get it very easily. Unless I'm missing something, everyone else who has posted also is not having a problem getting the meaning of the ad at first-glance.
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Considering the billboard perspective - it's not at all odd to think they are trying to threaten you.. or rather make you think you are being threatened so you take an extra second or two to actually look at the ad. When you slow down and spend 2-5 seconds reading it, it comes across as I've stated above. Again, is it a poor design.. maybe maybe not.. but I think the masses will get it.
I recall being in the airport recently and an ad had this exact effect on me. I was walking by barely caring about the ad, but it had a picture or words that made me say, "uhhh, What?!?" So I stopped and looked at it more carefully.
hmm... I wonder if put that one on my FB feed - I'll go look.
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@Dashrender said:
Considering the billboard perspective - it's not at all odd to think they are trying to threaten you.. or rather make you think you are being threatened so you take an extra second or two to actually look at the ad.
Not that you think that you are, that would be weird. Just that as you drive by or walk by your eye catches it and all you get are weird phrases like "Coming to get you."
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There is a billboard between Omaha, NE and Sioux City, Ia on I-29 that says
Prepare to meet they god!
That's it. Nothing more. Black text on a white billboard.
The first time I saw it, I figured there was a sniper somewhere about to take me out. Talk about weird!
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And now that you've had time to think about it, what does it mean?
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@scottalanmiller said:
And now that you've had time to think about it, what does it mean?
Frankly I have no idea, I'm not a religious person at all. To me it just seems like a threat.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
And now that you've had time to think about it, what does it mean?
Frankly I have no idea, I'm not a religious person at all. To me it just seems like a threat.
Now if I said that about an ad that I saw, imagine how people would say I was crazy and that it had some obvious meaning that "normal" people would just know
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I had a similar issue when Portal 2 came out. Having never heard of Portal, their billboards had a picture of a robot and the words "Coming soon" or something. Eventually they had ads with the name Portal on them... but to someone who didn't know Portal I thought it must be a movie.
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I'll start a new thread - let's see what people say.
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I'm sure they were going after the Portal 1 audience, but it seemed an odd thing to spend so much money on to market only to people who seemed like they would buy the product anyway and to completely snub those that didn't already know about it.
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@Dashrender said:
I'll start a new thread - let's see what people say.
Too late, they've already been tainted.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
And now that you've had time to think about it, what does it mean?
Frankly I have no idea, I'm not a religious person at all. To me it just seems like a threat.
Now if I said that about an ad that I saw, imagine how people would say I was crazy and that it had some obvious meaning that "normal" people would just know
Well, it IS either a threat or a wake-up call, depending on how you take it. And, it was clearly meant to be that. If you read that and think "holy crap, are there snipers behind that bush over there?", you're missing the point. Of course, just like the way the contested ad reads, one could in fact have that response. Therein is the ambiguity that embodies the humor of it. The actual point of it is that no one gets out of this life alive. Are you prepared to meet your maker? If not, you should think about it. No one knows when their last breath will be (but Chuck Norris might know when yours will be, especially if he's behind that bush over there), so be prepared.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I had a similar issue when Portal 2 came out. Having never heard of Portal, their billboards had a picture of a robot and the words "Coming soon" or something. Eventually they had ads with the name Portal on them... but to someone who didn't know Portal I thought it must be a movie.
So, what you're saying is that the ad got your attention and made you inquisitive? Wow, what an advertising fail. That in itself is effective. When they show the next ad that tells you what it is, you're already primed. And, if you already play Portal, you get it. Bonus.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
And now that you've had time to think about it, what does it mean?
Frankly I have no idea, I'm not a religious person at all. To me it just seems like a threat.
Atheists die, too. What happens after this? It's the one guaranteed point we will all pass, yet one of the most ignored areas of planning ahead.
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@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I had a similar issue when Portal 2 came out. Having never heard of Portal, their billboards had a picture of a robot and the words "Coming soon" or something. Eventually they had ads with the name Portal on them... but to someone who didn't know Portal I thought it must be a movie.
So, what you're saying is that the ad got your attention and made you inquisitive? Wow, what an advertising fail. That in itself is effective. When they show the next ad that tells you what it is, you're already primed. And, if you already play Portal, you get it. Bonus.
It made me inquisitive while driving and never learn what it was because of course without context I had no reason to remember it. So I never looked it up or asked. Actually I asked people in the car with me, no one had any idea either. It was a total advertising fail because it got me NOT to spend money and not even find out what it was about until after the game was out and no longer full price. By that time it felt like they only wanted their "inner circle" to play the game and it never felt like an invite to join in. Not that I think they meant that, it's just the feeling that makes you have no interest in buying it.
And after years, I still get a feeling of "we don't want you as a customer" from Valve when it comes to their games.
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@art_of_shred said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
And now that you've had time to think about it, what does it mean?
Frankly I have no idea, I'm not a religious person at all. To me it just seems like a threat.
Atheists die, too. What happens after this? It's the one guaranteed point we will all pass, yet one of the most ignored areas of planning ahead.
And it's the one point that the dead themselves don't care about. LOL
Yeah I know, most people like to think of themselves as more considerate than that. If given warning a person will often try to "put things in order" to help those who have to deal with the mess after they are gone.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I had a similar issue when Portal 2 came out. Having never heard of Portal, their billboards had a picture of a robot and the words "Coming soon" or something. Eventually they had ads with the name Portal on them... but to someone who didn't know Portal I thought it must be a movie.
So, what you're saying is that the ad got your attention and made you inquisitive? Wow, what an advertising fail. That in itself is effective. When they show the next ad that tells you what it is, you're already primed. And, if you already play Portal, you get it. Bonus.
It made me inquisitive while driving and never learn what it was because of course without context I had no reason to remember it. So I never looked it up or asked. Actually I asked people in the car with me, no one had any idea either. It was a total advertising fail because it got me NOT to spend money and not even find out what it was about until after the game was out and no longer full price. By that time it felt like they only wanted their "inner circle" to play the game and it never felt like an invite to join in. Not that I think they meant that, it's just the feeling that makes you have no interest in buying it.
And after years, I still get a feeling of "we don't want you as a customer" from Valve when it comes to their games.
Yer a weirdo. Mountain out of a mole-hill.
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It's not a mountain at all. Just a ton of money spent on a campaign that was mildly negative in consequences. Just as good ads have often mildly positive results, bad ones have bad results. Bad ads often cause people to be less likely to buy something rather than more likely. The same thing that makes people get positive feelings about a company from a good ad, a negative ad does the opposite. Valve's advertising caused a negative feeling because it didn't have anything positive to promote, just confusion and inclusionism. So the resulting feeling wasn't a positive one.
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@art_of_shred said:
Yer a weirdo. Mountain out of a mole-hill.
I find it weird that people assume that all ads, no matter what they are, produce positive feelings about products or companies.
