This for me is a quite disturbing advert. I can’t help but think that it is marginally pointless as well.
If you hadn’t guessed already, it is a government run advertising scheme to try and stamp out violence in teenage relationships. Yet I can already see a few major issues with the whole campaign.
For starters, realistically, if you were being subjected to such violence would this initiative really make even the most remote difference to your situation? If you hadn’t already flagged up that there were issues in your relationship or hadn’t reported them, is this advert really going to open your eyes to what is happening?
Now this isn’t for me to say not too try, but I think that adverts such as this only really work on more finely pinpointed topics. For example, I recently watched one of the adverts on checking your fire alarm. Not the sort of thing that would have normally been at the forefront of my thinking, but after seeing a short advert I thought ‘why not?’ and checked mine. Equally, there was a major crack down on Chlamydia recently. Not something aimed at all of the public, but through a combination of adverts and NHS awareness I know of people who went and got tested (who normally wouldn’t have) and as a result they got themselves sorted.
Yet I can’t see this falling into the same category. Much like the ‘look both ways’ campaign a few years back, I feel that the government are just pointing out the obvious by saying that victims of domestic violence should report it. Sure they’ll argue that their highlighting the issue and showing that there is a problem, but in my mind such an advert will prove to be trivial in the long run.
If they had been tougher on the subject and say introduced harsher laws onto the area, then the campaign may have had a greater success rate as it would show that there is a seriousness required when clamping down on the subject. However, they are merely shedding light and ‘raising awareness’. It’s not like people are all of a sudden going to come out in their masses, screaming to the high heavens about their ordeal and then applying for Jeremy Kyle to acquire repentance and rehabilitation.
All of these points are not where my main grievance lies however. My primary issue with these adverts is the double standards shown by the TV standards agency in allowing this advert to be broadcast at all hours. It first came to my attention when watching prime time family TV on Saturday night, only to find this advert in the break. Sure it’s aimed at teens, so they have to account for that, but there is no way that such domestic violence would normally be broadcast pre-watershed. After all young kids may be watching. Infact most likely will be watching.
Might sound like very little worry in the grand scheme of things, but let me bring to your attention something called Bandura’s bobo doll experiment (simply illustrated here);
(For anyone who skipped the watching of the above video, Bandura’s theory was essentially that children do as they see)
Now sceptics of what I’ve said would argue that the advert is condemning the behaviour on show, so surely it would be teaching a good lesson to the children watching? But really, aside from the 2 seconds of illustrative condemning words at the end of the advert it just looks like a couple of mid-teens participating in violent and malevolent behaviour.
Overall I feel that in the long run this campaign could prove to more harm than good. I can see that the government is trying to tackle as many social ‘problems’ as it can, but I feel it would be better off targeting more pressing issues with greater strength and authority and then focussing on changing the minor aspects of society. For me, this campaign is unlikely to change the dynamic of teenage relationships (which for the record I don’t believe are anywhere near violent enough to justify such a campaign in the first place) and as such is a waste of time and much needed resources.
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