Season Change
Posted: Wed 2 January, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Festering Season, People, Thoughts 2 Comments »Now that we’re over and done with on the Festering Season, it’s a season change in the advertising world.
Away go all the ads for perfume, shitty music compilations, and Christmas stuff in general.
Instead, for the start of the new year we get adverts for
- Dating sites – eHarmony, Match.com, etc.
- Weight-loss programmes – WeightWatchers, DietChef and Slimming World
- Holidays (and airlines)
- Banks
One advert is missing from the list though – I think this is the first time in about a decade that I haven’t seen an advert for stopping smoking . I assume they think everyone who’s going to quit has done so by now. Or maybe it’s an extension of all the other laws/rules about not advertising cigarettes – they now also can’t advertise stopping smoking?
Anyway, it’s all interesting, in that it shows how much advertisers expect people to be ‘normal’, to do certain things at certain times of the year. I find that fascinating.
I’ve hardly seen any live TV since we got back, but I did see a billboard on the way back from Heathrow on Monday… so, there is some sort of campaign. http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/12/smoking-health-harm/.
But, there was a campaign recently, back in (was it?) October last year, so maybe the TV advertising budget has been hit by departmental cutbacks.
While finding that first link I was astounded to see that they estimate 21% of the adult population smokes (http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/category/policy-areas/public-health/tobacco/). Bloody hell.
Yup, it’s still a popular habit, amazingly. Mind you, if everyone stopped smoking, the government’s tax income would drop significantly, thus dropping the ability to fund things like the NHS.
It’s kind of ironic really – that tax from smoking significantly helps the funding for the NHS etc.