How Emotions Shape Our World. (4)

Clubbing us over the head: excerpts from actual campaigns

Here are excerpts from actual ad campaigns that might infuriate or fall flat with me if, in becoming a confused consumer, I am retreating into my Neanderthal sensibility.

Insurance company

This out-of-home campaign features not only pictures of an insurance card, but the torn-out excerpt of a Summary Plan of Benefits, replete with linear, Vulcan phraseology. This provider also prominently featured the word "colonoscopy" in recent ads appearing on buses and bus shelters. This campaign emphasizes bureaucratic process and procedure, with a little scary, technical terminology thrown in for good measure.

Hospital system

On billboards, this hospital system makes strides by showing human faces, but the faces of stock photo models — not mine, nor those I could interpret as being my family’s, and mostly Caucasian I might add — with technical terms like “surgeon” and “cardiac center” floating above. Showing people is good, but consumers can easily sniff out and disregard what is too obviously stock art. And again, we can't seem to get away from technical terms that focus on the scary procedure instead of on the positive, human outcome.

HMO

This one shows a folksy, retro-inspired illustration of a dirty hand, and tells me to wash mine. This is part of a campaign whose launch featured giant, anthropomorphic specimen cups and syringes. The effort to use unique design — albeit representing the same, overtly medical subjects — is laudable in a market flooded with its opposite. It's a step forward. Somehow, the message went in the opposite direction, seeming paternalistic and slightly demeaning.

(Continues)
1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5