"We used to have a lot of the disturbing-death style anti-drink driving/speeding ads, but they were apparently losing their effectiveness as people got used to them. Thus, they've shifted to another approach.
Or so I've heard."
In the New Zealand Media a new approach has been taken to portray the importance of drug-driving in Aotearoa. The humorous '12 Frosty Pigs' Advertisement adresses the seriousness of driving under the influence of drugs. In the beginning of the ad an elderly kiwi couple are shown working in their bakery, a middle aged Indian man and his brother are shown outside their convenience store and lastly a slightly elder Asian couple working in a fish and chip shop. The Asian lady working in the fish and chip shop states, "People come in and by food, I know they smoking the naughty cigarette and take long time to order." The lady then continues "I say, you too slow,you have a crispy duck, sit down!" This representation shows New Zealanders as slow, inadequate and in general, thick. The way the lady instructs the 'stoned' person to sit down is in a sarcastic but aggressive way that would make one feel inferior to her because of their drug influence. This representation makes viewers believe these people cannot think for themselves, they will be delayed in their responses and that it is just easier to decide for them. The elderly couple who own the bakery are shown in the next scene reciting all the names they can think of that is used to describe Marijuana. The elder man suggests "Weed, pot, Northland green or New Zealand green, yeah they buy heaps thats for real (laughs)" Then his wife asks "What about that young guy the other day?" to which he responds "He was a bit slow that fellow." They show camera footage from in the store of the 'young guy' walking in and looking at what he would like to buy. The guy is approximately in his twenties, dressed in shorts, a checkered shirt, scruffy hair, the New Zealand typical male stereotype very similar to the young guy who is told off in the fish and chip shop. This scene again reinforcing how society sees drug users, not just in terms of drug-driving but participating in general day by day life.
In the next scene the Indian man talks about two males laughing about the soap in his convenience store, he says "My soap is not funny..at all." The creators of this advertisement have created video footage in each store of people under the influence of drugs coming into their store and having abnormal behaviour especially for the age they are. It is very carefully put together in that the acting owners of the stores are of mixed race in New Zealands society but the drug users are only seen to be kiwis of between 20-25 years of age and 3 out of 4 of them were male. This changes the view of New Zealand males once again, stereotyping them to be the more common drug users or drug-drivers. The advertisement itself shows the wider implications of drug-driving as the actors are judging and making assumptions of these people themselves.
This advertisement along side the 'Blazed' ad, are the new approach to humour in the advertising of drug-driving in New Zealand. The older New Zealand ads used shock, images of car accidents, injured people, shattered glass and loud screeching sounds. Although this was effective in that the viewers felt alarmed, threatened and ideally would be scared away from drug-driving, clearly this wasn't effective enough. As explained in this "We used to have a lot of the disturbing-death style anti-drink driving/speeding ads, but they were apparently losing their effectiveness as people got used to them. Thus, they've shifted to another approach.
Or so I've heard."
New Zealanders respond more to humour than to horror and although this can be seen as naive and insensitive, I personally think its due to the way these advertisements can be spoken about, discussed with friends and family as opposed to the terrifying advertisements that are not appropriate to discuss.
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