The ads were too disturbing for children according to complaints. They'll be aired only after 8 pm. There has been a 5 fold increase in the number of calls to the quitline.
Singapore Airs Anti-Smoking Ads at Night - Forbes/AP
March 29, 2007
Associated Press
Singapore's graphic anti-smoking TV ads are working - but now will be aired only at night following complaints that they're too disturbing for children, officials said Thursday.
In one of the government Health Promotion Board's ads, a sunken-eyed woman with cracked lips and brownish, deformed teeth appears under the headline: "Quitting is hard. Not quitting, is harder."
The board said the three-month campaign that began March 20 will continue, but the ads now will only be shown after 8 p.m local time and will be preceded by a message warning viewers of the graphic content.
"The Health Promotion Board has received feedback that our advertisement may be too disturbing to some children," the board's chief executive, Lam Pin Woon, wrote in an open letter published Thursday in The Straits Times newspaper.
"Since the launch of our campaign, we have seen a fivefold increase in the number of calls to (the government's) QuitLine from smokers desiring to quit smoking," Lam wrote. "We encourage parents to take this opportunity to educate their children on the fatal consequences of smoking."
As part of the campaign, the board also has posted two actors - posing as a doctor and a woman hacking and coughing on her deathbed - in its bustling downtown business district at lunchtime.
Like Hong Kong, tightly controlled Singapore has banned smoking in most public places.
The city-state is well known for government-led public behavior modification campaigns that have included pushes for courteous driving, showing up on time for weddings, keeping public toilets clean and speaking proper English.
Here is the letter published in Straits Times:
I REFER to the letter by Miss Chiam Pui Hoon, 'Why put graphic anti-smoking ad on TV?' (ST, March 27).
The TV advertisement is the first phase of our three-month- long smoking-control campaign and presents a fatal and debilitating consequence of smoking to motivate smokers to quit and encourage non-smokers to urge their loved ones to stop smoking.
The second phase of our campaign adopts an encouraging tone to urge smokers to quit and non-smokers to support their efforts.
The reality is that one in two smokers will die from smoking-related diseases. Each smoker will on average die 13 to 14 years earlier than non-smokers. Disability, disfigurement and early death due to smoking are very real.
The Health Promotion Board (HPB) has received feedback that our advertisement may be disturbing to some children. To address this, we have re-scheduled our advertisement to run after 8pm and will preface it with a warning. Even after 8pm, we will not place our advertisement in programmes targeted at children.
We encourage parents to take this opportunity to educate their children on the fatal consequences of smoking, as a survey conducted by HPB showed that the median age of children picking up smoking is about 12 years.
Since the launch of our campaign, HPB has seen a fivefold increase in the number of calls to QuitLine from smokers desiring to quit smoking. We have also received many commendations from smokers and non-smokers alike.
We assure the public that HPB is responsive to the public's feedback. We seek the public's understanding that we need to target both smokers and non-smokers in our campaign.
Lam Pin Woon
Chief Executive Officer
Health Promotion Board
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