When you think of the greatest advertising campaigns of all time, Nike’s anthemic “Just do it” spots spring to mind, or the tough as nails Marlboro Man, or the world’s most famous clown/spokesperson, Ronald McDonald. Recently however, there’s been another campaign that appears to have caught the attention of, well, the entire world—and it wasn’t conceived on Madison Avenue either. I’m referring to the Swine Flu campaign. That’s right, swine flu. The baddest motherfucking sickness in town. Swine Flu made other strains of flu crap in their tiny viral pants. One mention of Swine Flu and schools systematically shut down, businesses closed, and terrified, credulous T.V worshipers stocked up on surgical masks and industrial-sized antibacterial hand wash—all while putting the finishing touches on their wills. But like most ad campaigns, the product didn’t quite live up to its hype. Turns out, the symptoms, mortality rate, and treatment of Swine Flu aren’t too different from the boring old common flu (which incidentally, kills way more people). Of course the folks at CNN (for example) would have you believe that contracting Swine Flu was the equivalent of inhaling millions of microscopic Hitlers. Its name alone evoked enough disturbing imagery to petrify even the strongest immune system. When I first heard about it, I had visions of pigs devouring copious amounts of disease riddled shit and then indiscriminately French kissing strangers. It was sold as the next Bubonic Plague yet turned out to be the Milli Vanilli of sicknesses. Here’s a list of things more worrying than Swine Flu:Athlete’s Foot
Wasp bites
Eczema
Genital warts
Celine Dion
To those affected with Swine Flu, I say “don’t get your knickers in a knot”. There's already a vaccine for it (and has been since the “campaign” began) rendering this non-issue even more irrelevant.
My point is, like most ad campaigns, it only takes a little homework on the part of the consumer to discover the ugly truth. Those fancy running shoes were assembled by underage, underpaid kids inside a boiling sweatshop somewhere in the boonies of China. The Malboro Man died slowly and painfully of lung cancer. And a steady diet of McDonalds food almost killed Morgan Spurlock.
So do yourself a favor and don’t buy into the hype before you’ve conducted a 5-minute Google search (that’s usually all it takes). Remember, just because some android news anchor read it off a cue card, or Oprah endorsed it, doesn’t make it true.
