Monday, September 7, 2009

Sex with Hitler

Now that's just incredible balls-out marketing - a shock-tactic German advertising campaign to raise AIDS awareness. The tv and poster campaign depicts both Hitler and Stalin having sex with women.

It has understandbly been criticised by groups representing people with the disease- it runs the risk of labelling them as the 'mass murderers', rather than the affliction itself. But perhaps that is a risk worth taking, if the majority take it as intended.

Other have criticised the lack of information - there's no mention of condoms, etc. But I think that's exatcly how it should be. Advertising suffers all too frequently from dumbing-down its audience and dilluting the audience. By assuming (I'd imagine correctly) that the targets for this campaign are well aware of how to prevent Aids. The message is the importance of doing so.

Regardless of the effectiveness of the campaign, you have to appreciate the brilliant graphics of the poster (I haven't seen the TV equivilent). It's rare that you see an image quite so striking.

You've gotta love Germany (just love it safely).