February 11 2009
Badvertising
posted by Ana Samways at 9:47 amSomeone should’ve told Australian charity group Adults Surviving Child Abuse that humour and incest do not mix. The television ad, which airs this week in Australia, shows the father of a bride making a wedding speech… “I remember the first words that I ever said to her after sex — ‘Don’t tell Mum.’”. Sick joke or attention grabber? Watch it below and let us know what you think.
Here’s the Sydney Morning Herald story.
February 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
It made me want to barf.
February 12th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Well, if they’re successful with getting their message across, perhaps we could reconsider the ending to our own child abuse television addvertisement; after the toddler is thrown into the piano, the room of people cracks up laughing.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Still, he gave a great speech, and got everyone laughing.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:23 am
That is disgusting and extremely offensive!
February 17th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Sadly these kinds of shock tactics are what the media has to use these days – look at our own speeding and drunk driving ads which feature people covered in blood and screaming on the side of the road because of accidents.
Even sadder is the fact that people are too dismissive of the deep and lasting trauma that comes from childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. You may not be able to see the scars from sexual and emotional abuse – but they are there.
As more and more people become “immune” to the nastier side of life, the more advertisers will have to resort to shock tactics like this to try and reach people who otherwise are so self absorbed that they aren’t aware of what goes on around them.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:12 am
Very sickening, but if the message gets out then good on them. If that message can help just 1 person then that is all that counts and the ad has worked.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Oh yeah really funny to someone never been through it is it??!! Well it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all. That wont help a victim speak out at all. It just belittles being sexually abused. It says sexual abuse is funny what are you worried about. The idiots who wrote this, acted in it and approved it, are condoning sexual abuse by making it funny. Thanks for laughing at my pain and millions of others like me. It is a serious problem…not a single thing funny about it. It is sickening!!
February 17th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Sadly, there’ll be people watching this like an offender I know who will actually think this is funny and support their view of abuse. As long as the ad can be seen as supportive by those that choose to do this sort of stuff I think it’s a mistake. I thought it didn’t really think about victims and this ad may bring up a fair bit. Overall I thought the ad was offensive and poorly thought out.
February 17th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Humour is a way to cut through a message. That I think everyone understands, but.
It would appear that a lack of thought for the real victims is evident.
I have observed that there are two sides to the debate, unfortunately they are the naive who haven’t encountered it (thankfully) and those who have or who have had to deal with the fallout.
Listen to the latter group – they actually know what they are talking about.
I fall unfortunately in the latter and after much consideration and thought I agree with Des and Jill.
February 17th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Sick Joke
February 17th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Sadly, people will fiind this entertaining and those with very few brain cells and an inclination toward this type of behaviour, will actually be reinforced. There is often this notion that what appears on TV is somehow valid or validates certain types of behaviour, like abuse. what crap advertisers!1 Cheap shot marketng
February 17th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Amanda, How can this message possibly help abouse victims?? You have to have a certain level of intelligence to even pick up that it is a spoof and then to be able to discern a positive message from it is really asking some members of our society for an awful lot, don’t you think??
February 17th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Sam, you’re a dikhead!!
February 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Uncomfortable
February 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Actually doesnt this advert seem to make incest trivial by having a laugh about it? This is the opposite of what the message intended. Pretty sad all round. Marketers need to pull their heads in.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:07 am
This is just plain sick
February 17th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I guess this is one way of presenting a message that unfortunately direly needs presentation. Of course it is a far cry from monsoon wedding, for example, but I think it leads in the same direction.
My reaction to this vid after a little thought was that the person making the speech should be pelted with sharp heavy objects rather than politely cheered. I came to that conclusion after thing about social mores and the prevalence of this kind of violence in our society.
I think the ad is quite intelligently made, and I hope it is wildly successful.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:24 am
All of these ads – the TV and radio miss the mark because they don’t show the victims’ pain. But in terms of gaining cut-through the ads work; people are talking about them.
It will be interesting to see if anyone lodges a complaint with the advertising standards board and what the outcome is.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Yeah sorry this is bad taste and sickening. Sexual abuse will never be easy to get over, and that’s not the issue! The ad is sending the wrong message.
February 17th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Yeah, it is sick, but I think everyone here kinda missed the point of the ad!? It says ‘if only it were this easy to get over’. Like, Jill, I feel extremely bad for for having to go through such a thing, but if she had paid attention she’d have realised that it’s NOT laughing at it at all!
February 17th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Sorry guys that is just a bit of Australian humor for you…
February 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I remember when I was in the process of taking my abuser to court – at lunch one day a friend of a friend (who didn’t know what was going on) told a paedophile joke, and my friends (who did know) all looked at me in terror, but (to their obvious relief) I was already in a fit of giggles. Because the joke was blackly funny. This video is not funny, it’s just weak. And yes, there are plenty of paedophiles who take the view that there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, it’s just society that turns it into something it’s not. This video illustrates how they think the world should be, and I don’t think the follow-up message really solves that problem.
February 17th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Ugh!
February 17th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Lovefoxxx has hit the nail on the head. This advert is illustrating that unlike the scenario portrayed, sexual abuse is not something to get over with a few ribald jokes. Some folks are too quick with the offended response and too slow with the understanding.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I do think it’s funny, but then I’ve never been sexually abused. If I had been, I think that I would find the advert cheap and insensitive.
The makers of advertising (print or TV) that use attention grabbing methods, display their inability to produce intelligent thought provoking material without resorting to shock and titillation.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Spectacularly inappropriate and no doubt ineffective.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
sure its intention is to help but this is treading a very fine line for such a sensitive subject like sexual abuse. inappropriate really in my view – made me feel a bit sick even though this has never happened to me personally.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I agree with Simon DC and others – most people seem to have missed the point. But I guess that means the ad’s not going to be effective, if the majority of people don’t figure out what the message actually is. Which is a shame, because child sexual abuse is a terrible thing to experience and have to try to get over. Maybe the offended reaction of many people who’ve commented here is a symptom of the lack of discussion of this issue in society.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
It’s not the folks who are offended who have missed the point of this ad. It looks like the authors are prescribing this scenario as a good example of how righteous Ozzies can just get over little things like child abuse with a bit of well-placed humour. Anyone who can’t just needs to harden up. The first speck of reality or compassion comes in the voiceover, where the actual message is completely overshadowed by what’s just been shown. Unbelievable. What the advertisers supposedly intended to say conflicts with what actually gets said.
February 19th, 2009 at 12:44 am
I think this ad gets straight to the point. Because it obviously isn’t easy to get over which is what it’s trying to say. I didn’t find it funny, more like a shock. But it does drive home the point.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:21 am
I don’t see what the big deal is, everyone loved the speech. I tuink he did a good job. You have to rememebr some people’s dads don’t even turn up to their kids weddings or are dead. She’s lucky.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Thank you for the words Marie. As a survivor of emotional abuse it’s good to know that some people understand. I can only hope that it’s not through first hand experience.
And Shaun, don’t make me smack you. “She’s lucky” that she got molested?
You have to be kidding.
February 21st, 2009 at 11:42 pm
genious
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
I thought it was f**ckin funny, but i’m not a child abuse survivor, so I respect that it annoys some survivors. Having said that, I do think Lovefoxxx is right. And given that it’s just been linked from the b3ta newsletter, I think it’s a very successful ad!
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:15 am
The whole point is that it’s not funny, that we need to not just brush issues under the carpet by making jokes from a distance.
At least, that’s what I thought: if you’re getting shocked by it then that’s the point, it’s not really meant to be funny.
We have child abuse ads where the kid is being abused and talks about it, and explains that we shouldn’t avoid the issue. This seems to produce the same effect.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:41 am
It wasn’t funny. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to make you shut up, pay attention, and when it gets to the actual message at the end, you’re supposed to be thinking completely about the issue. It’s not making a mockery of child abuse, quite the opposite actually, the advert is saying that it is incredibly hard to get over abuse and that not enough adults are seeking help, and that not enough people are concerned about the issue.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Shocking irony is the key to this ad. It works pretty well – I was shocked.
I also agree with Deadhead’s comments.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:23 am
It does raise the question though, if so many people AREN’T picking up on the message at the end … is it actually an effective ad??
March 5th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Surely this advert is directly inspired by the shockingly brilliant film, Festen? I’m assuming they got permission from Vinterberg and Rukov…
March 12th, 2009 at 12:06 am
I was shocked by the ad, but I thought “well, at least someone is saying it out loud”. I decided to go ahead and view their website. I thought, maybe it will be a good resource for me and other women in my support group.
The first thing I saw on their site was a t-shirt that says “my uncle raped me when i was 8 and all i got was this lousy t-shirt”
That just enraged me. I came to their website looking for support and I’m met with yet another sick ad? How can they be portraying themselves as a site that wants to offer a SAFE, SECURE and RESPECTFUL envirment to survivors and yet post ads and images that make us want to puke? Clearly, they do now know what it really feels like to be a survivor.
Advertising for education and prevention is one thing, but to reach out to survivors? What a sick joke. I left that site feeling like crap.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I am so horrified that this would be a joke that I have not even watched the video…why would I want to. Is anyone having this banned?