I’ve always been slightly puzzled as to a lot of the Ad Council ads on television. Though they have been getting better and better quality-wise, their messages always seem a little strange. For example, the Ad Council has recently been running an ad encouraging viewers to, of all things, ask their doctors questions. Another set of ads encourage teens to reject overbearing boyfriends and girlfriends (hilariously, in one of the ads, having a guy ask a girl for nude photographs). And now, Bev Purdue has launched an NC campaign to encourage people to use seatbelts.
Maybe I’m just old fashioned here, but I don’t see the logic or the reasoning behind these advertisements. Since when do I, or anyone else for that matter, need to be told to buckle up? The North Carolina driver’s licensing system already requires drivers to go through education to get a license- as do many states- meaning, in most cases, that drivers already have heard the appropriate “click it or ticket” arguments. I’m sure there are a lot of stubborn drivers out there going without a seat belt, but do we really need to start a statewide campaign (which no doubt costs a sizable chunk of change) to convince people of something they probably are already casually aware of, even if they choose to not listen to it?
Most of these advertisements (that I have seen, anyway) appear on public access channels or other obtuse networks- or late at night after lots of prime time shows have cut off. They do occasionally crop up on everyday networks, but the slots are clearly too expensive for them to appear on any regular basis. This essentially means that a lot of money is being spent to advertise to a very odd collection of people- and, as I might stipulate, people who don’t care.
According to Purdue’s press release, “In 2008, 484 unbuckled motorists died in North Carolina”- so we can at least understand that there is some worry about not wearing a seatbelt. In a perfect world where things like this really did work, I could entirely see dropping the money on a program like this. Still, while seatbelts do indeed protect motorists, this is very obviously not an issue with seatbelts- it’s probably an issue with unsafe drivers in general. I hate to generalize, but let’s face it: those who don’t wear seatbelts are going to be the same kind of people to take other risks while driving, and that can very easily lead to an inflated statistic.
In any case, one hopes this isn’t too expensive- there are a lot more things to be worried about in NC than people cruising around without seatbelts- namely, the insanely high unemployment rate.
Tags: bev purdue, click it or ticket, Politics, seat belt
