Health Department Spots Don’t Know the Score

Advertiser: California Department of Health Services

Agency: Asher & Partners, Los Angeles

Challenge: Give smokers a good reason to quit.

The Ads: This spot in the state’s long-running anti-smoking campaign warns that impotence could be a side effect of cigarette smoking. A glamorous woman attending a formal affair exchanges suggestive glances with a debonair man puffing away on a cigarette. Suddenly, the man’s cigarette goes limp and the woman loses interest. A narrator states that research has linked smoking with impotence. “You’re going to be looking at smoking a little differently,” the narrator says. “Cigarettes. Still think they’re sexy?”

Comment: Concerns about impotence can be a powerful motivator, as Viagra sales attest. It isn’t hard to imagine that if this guy was a nonsmoker, he probably would have scored with a gorgeous woman--a scenario that may resonate with male smokers but is troubling on other fronts. The Department of Health Services, after all, is working to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Yet here is an ad that all but endorses sex with strangers. $+