NEWS

Alyona Topolyanskaya 

Creators of a controversial new ad say the end justifies the means, but concerned Russian parents beg to differ.

A photo showing a cigarette stubbed out on a sleeping baby has appeared on Moscow's streets with the caption "Smoking near a child is even bigger torture".

The idea of the startling image is to persuade people to stop smoking - especially parents - and it was created by marketing firms News Outdoor Group and ADV Group, for the "Does it matter?" (Vse ravno?) campaign.

"This is a really powerful, harsh image, and we consciously used it.  Social adverts are not supposed to be comfortable," said the chairman of ADV's board of directors, Dmitry Korobkov.

But not everyone agrees.

Alena Yuchenkova is a mother of two.  Her four-year old daughter Alina pays special attention to pictures of babies, since her brother Dima was born five months ago.  "My daughter found the picture really upsetting. I couldn't figure out how to tactfully explain the meaning to her," writes Alena, a non-smoker, in her live journal blog.  Her post generated comments from dozens of parents saying they too, found the images disturbing, and made them physically ill.

Korobkov is unpeturbed. "Overall, it's not important whether or not someone likes the ads, what's important is what it prompts someone to do," he explains.

There was no formal green light from the city authorities for the campaign, and Marina Cherepakhina, responsible for the city's social adverts, declined to comment on the campaign.

But Korobkov pointed out that there are no rules saying the authorities had to approve every ad on display around town.

News Outdoor, the company responsible for displaying the ads, chose not to comment on the campaign. 

Psychologist Katerina Vladimova said shocking adverts are not a new marketing approach. Various companies have used them for years to generate controversy - and column inches - about their products.  Those creating social adverts started to do the same. "When companies like Diesel or Benetton use a shocking ad, they can measure whether or not the campaign worked by looking at their sales, but it's not clear how to do that here," she added.

ADV Group plans to conduct a study after this campaign, to determine how effective their tactics really are.  It's not clear what criteria the group plans to use to measure success, or how they will be able to prove that parents stopped smoking near their children after seeing their adverts.

The group isn't planning to disclose their research plans ahead of time, and will only do so after they are finished collecting data.

But not everyone is convinced that the adverts will have much impact. Mikhail is a father of three, and while he agrees that smoking near children is bad parenting, it's naïve to think that this poster will change anybody's mind.

"I'm telling you this as an ex-smoker - you're indifferent to these ads until something personal hits you over the head," he said.

Photo courtesy of publikator_s/livejournal.com