Effective or just Plane Stupid?

Plane Stupid, a grass-roots organisation that campaigns against the ever expanding aviation industry, recently took a bite from the media cherry but it seems some are finding it hard to swallow. Their new fifty second advert to be shown across UK cinemas with an age 15 certificate, shows CGI polar bears descending from the sky, falling between skyscrapers to their death on the streets of an unidentified city centre while the whine of a jet engine is heard overhead.

Aiming to raise awareness of the high levels of carbon emissions associated with short haul flights the advert has been slammed by many critics who accuse Plane Stupid of using scaremongering tactics. Godfrey Bloom, the UKIP representative for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, who made headlines when he claimed that women do not “clean behind the fridge enough”, has already told the Daily Telegraph that he intends to complain to the advertising Standards Authority. Bloom stated: “This is a graphic and hysterical advert which will cause unnecessary distress and alarm.”

The controversy surrounding the advert begs the question whether shock tactics actually work at shifting public attitude, especially when it comes to issues such as climate change. If we look at advertisements from other campaigns, trauma-porn is seen an effective and beneficial way of getting their message across, who can forget the now infamous Barnardo’s advert? In these cases the distress caused by watching images of say a child, injured and slumped dying beside a tree is seemingly an acceptable tactic when it comes to reducing road accidents. Yet when it comes to challenging our vested interests with images of polar bear’s guts and blood it seems, for the public, this is a step too far?

Of course, imagery of polar bears falling to their death is a hard one to relate to, and the advert runs the risk of the metaphor overpowering the message, being dismissed as pure propaganda. But with time ticking by and action still not being taken adverts like this will surely increase, with campaigns harking back to the good old saying ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’. Whether desperate measures in the form of shock tactics actually work when it comes to changing attitudes and behaviour towards climate change is yet to be seen.

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