Lying In Advertising.

Lying in advertising is bad, but common. Too common.  Do your research before you buy.

Attention Spans

Humans have a pretty short attention span and I think that when it comes to advertising that can be a pretty good thing.  With the thousands and thousands of ads that we are bombarded with everyday our attention spans allow us to glimpse over anything that doesn't seem interesting to us. This is beneficial both to the consumer and the advertisers.  The consumers are able to easily tune out anything that doesn't interest them while advertisers are able to get the attention of their main target market (so long as the ad is designed well).

Keeping with the idea of short attention span I figure this is probably enough to get my point across without making people want to skip through the rest and getting bored. =)

Shock Advertising.

Using shocking images and/or text in advertising is nothing new.

I think that advertisements that shock people can be very effective because it makes the viewer actually stop and rethink what exactly they just saw.  But I also think that the shocking image can make people view the brand in a different light.

In the ad above for example the message is quite shocking and makes the viewer think about the killing of animals in a different way.  But it also would make many people question the WWF's tactics.  There are many people in the world who don't view animals as 'equals' or as beings worth saving and would be upset that they (the WWF) would compare the value of a human child's life to that of a wild animal.

http://newevolutiondesigns.com/75-shocking-advertisements

The above link is to a blog where someone compiled 75 shocking ads.  Quite a few of them are very strange and I can't help but wonder how they even promote the brand.  For example:

This is an advertisement for some kind of chocolate, yet it features a young girl putting a canary through a meat grinder.  The connection is not immediately made and honestly this ad makes me not want to eat their chocolate. 

Shocking advertising can be effective if used properly, if not it can cause harm to the brand.