History ScareEmStraight / Advertising

* A string of anti-obesity campaigns in New York City, trying to convince people to cut back on sugar-based drinks (soda, sweetened iced tea, etc). At first, the advertisements were quite lighthearted, showing a group of young people eating a ton of sugar packets and the narrator noting that one wouldn't eat this much sugar in a single day. Then, the ads became more aggressive like the aforementioned anti-smoking ads by showing morbidly obese people being confined to a motorized scooter, suffering a heart attack in the hospital, and a person with diabetes whose feet have turned black and had to be amputated. The campaign was proposed by former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as part of his crusade to cut the city's obesity rate (he managed to get trans fat banned in most eateries, although he failed in his attempt to ban large-size drinks), which has been continued by his successor Bill De Blasio. This led people to rebel against not only the local campaign, but also the Obama-era attempts to replicate the crusade nationwide, with the most common complaints being that the government, unlike in other countries (primarily Northern Europe), doesn't have the right to determine what people can eat and drink.

** A PSA called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8syQeFtBKc Evan]]" seemed to be mostly recycling another motivational video (though this was a much abbreviated version) about a blooming friendship about a boy named Evan writing messages on a desk for the next person to see, until the desk's classroom ended up getting locked up for some amount of time but the boy and the receiver end up meeting in real life during by recognizing each other's handwriting... [[MoodWhiplash until a boy in the background walks in and loads a shotgun, and everyone in the scene runs for their lives.]] Then the PSA goes on to explain that [[FailedASpotCheck you didn't notice that]] [[MeaningfulBackgroundEvent this boy has been exhibiting behavior that made him suspect for a school shooting]] while Evan was busy trying to figure out who his mystery friend was. [[{{Foreshadowing}} You would've been tipped off that this would've had something to do with gun violence]] if you knew that the poster of the video was called 'Sandy Hook Promise'.

** A rather recent Australian anti-drunk-driving campaign is seriously just "If you drink and drive, you're [[TooDumbToLive a bloody idiot]]". Welcome to Australia. In fact, several ads contain that tagline, primarily from the TAC or Transport Accident Commission, which is well-known for its hard-hitting road safety [=PSAs=], a compilation of which can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTvd-84DI88 here.]]

** And the song is also creepy, particularly the "sick, sick, sick" part.

** That was either unintentionally disturbing or intentionally disturbing in a very grim way.

* [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Curious_Alice_%281971%29.webm This]] [[NightmareFuel absolutely scary]] [[DrugsAreBad anti-Drug PSA]] from 1971, entitled ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Curious Alice]]'' (not the only 1970s anti-drug work involving an Alice), that ironically is ''so'' [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs bizarre and creepy]] that it seems the ''producers'' were on drugs when they made it. ScareEmStraight, indeed.

* An ad campaign from the early 90's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyl5Mwr84MA intending to teach young children]] not to put dangerous objects in their mouth. Of course, they explain this so terribly that it tells kids "Always ask someone you love before putting something in your mouth." Yeah, [[SarcasmMode that won't get annoying at dinner time]] [[GoneHorriblyRight when the kid asks permission]] [[LiteralMinded for each individual bite]]. Not to mention the AccidentalInnuendo involved in a song called "Don'tcha put it in your mouth."

** They actually had the man go to intersections all over New Zealand and had him sitting and spinning the wheel. Now that's Par

* New Zealand deliberately averted this trope in a drink-driving campaign aimed at the Maori community. The ad showed a boy at a party trying to decide whether to intervene to stop a drunk friend from driving, in a humorous Music/FlightOfTheConchords-esque monologue. The state body responsible for the campaign claimed that they had deliberately been trying to avoid shock approaches because research had shown these to be unsuccessful with the target group of young drivers. The commercial went viral and was a huge success, creating at least two internet memes ("I've been internalizing a really complicated situation in my head" and "You know I can't grab your ghost chips!")

** A rather recent Australian anti-drunk-driving campaign is seriously just "If you drink and drive, you're [[TooDumbToLive a bloody idiot]]". Welcome to Australia. In fact, several ads contain that tagline, primarily from the TAC or Transport Accident Commission, which is well-known for its hard-hitting road safety PSAs, a compilation of which can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTvd-84DI88 here.]]

** A particularly scary one is when a smoking ad showed a human aorta (taken from a dead smoker) and then they squeezed the plaque out of it. [[NauseaFuel It was graphic and disturbing]], and it ''showed up on kids' channels''.
*** Another disturbing one shows how a smokers lung would look if squeezed like a sponge into a beaker: black, thick sludge. This one was also shown frequently during kids' programming.
*** Another one featured a smoker being dragged away with a fish-hook through his cheek. This appeared on posters and on TV.
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evIrwW6cLCg The First Natural Born Smoker]]''.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPuoQ6yb08Q One advert]] basically goes through their [[BodyHorror horror folder]], complete with strokes, gangrene, and even mouth cancer. Why must they inflict this on us non-smokers? The song by Music/LeonardCohen makes the ad even creepier.

** Australia had a very clever Anti-smoking PSA around 2013 that played with the scare tactic. An advert block would begin with a graphic and depressing "teaser", with the narration telling you how much it hurts and how "death will be the least of your worries", ending on a dark and confusing note. After a few minutes of commercials, the actual PSA appeared, complete with the teaser's dark and depressing narration about the pain, growing symptoms, and how "this is it". Cue the man standing up smiling as the ad says "you've done it, you've quit smoking for good". Turns out it was encouraging you to get through the negative consequences of quitting. It's quite effective when it offers a positive chance at "redemption" from [[FateWorseThanDeath the horrific consequences]] you witnessed not five minutes ago.

** A rather recent Australian anti-drunk-driving campaign is seriously just "If you drink and drive, you're [[TooDumbToLive a bloody idiot]]". Welcome to Australia.

** They actually had the man go to intersections all over New Zealand and had him sitting and spinning the wheel.

*** There was also a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUX6LABCEA version made for TV]] featuring a little girl lying underneath a tree trunk, presumably after getting hit by a speeding car. As she repeats the above lines, she comes back to life, with her bones snapping back in place with a [[SickeningCrunch sickening crunch,]] accompanied by creepy music. She then gets dragged back by an invisible force to the middle of the road, where she wakes up and gasps.

** There are people who still can't get the sounds of the old woman screaming for help out of their head years later. Also, the third one saying to keep your exits clear, with a shot of a man struggling to get past a bicycle in his hallway, is ''terrifying'' if you live in a house which has a thin narrow hallway leading to the door.

* In the mid-2000s, there was a pretty graphic Fire Kills PIF about chip pan safety with a woman's voice over explaining what you should and shouldn't do if your chip pan catches fire. The ad ends with a shock tactic as the woman is shown at the end revealing what happened to her because she didn't follow the instructions and how it could easily happen to the audience.

** There was an award-winning radio advert about why children should always wear seatbelts when traveling in a car. In the style of "Watch with Mother," with nursery rhyme music playing, an inappropriately cheerful woman talks about little AliceAndBob who loved the story of Peter Pan and wanted to be like him. They got their wish when the car crashed on their way to school. Just like Peter Pan, Bob flew (through the windscreen) and Alice "never grew up" — because she died. “What a mess”, indeed.

* Those "Above the Influence" ads are usually tame, but remember the early one with the unattended little girl tugging the raft into the swimming pool, and the voiceover saying, "Just tell her parents you weren't watching her because you were getting stoned. [[SarcasmMode They'll understand]]"? That one's arguably even worse than an over-the-top illustration of what drugs will actually ''do'' to you, because the message is more like, "YouBastard, your natural inclination to choose fun over responsibility '''IS GOING TO KILL THIS CHILD.'''" Because obviously if you'll do drugs at all, you'll do them ''anywhere'', including while you're babysitting a four-year-old with access to an open pool.

** Another Above the Influence ad depicted a girl puking into a toilet, the camera later revealing she threw up some of her most precious memories. Infamously, it was shown during times where most people [[NauseaFuel would probably be eating]].

* Back in the nineties, there was an anti-drug PSA that featured a little girl sitting in her room when it suddenly began to rapidly fill up with water. You got to see her frantically try to open her window before presumably drowning and floating offscreen. It was about the effects of huffing, which has the same effect on the brain as drowning.

** A lesser-known PSA in the same series featured a cheery song about heroin, accompanied by visuals of an addict injecting themselves and vomiting into a filthy public toilet.
* There was a PSA that showed this guy calling himself "[[SnakesAreSinister Snake]]" who comes off as just some drug dealer. Throughout the PSA, Snake discusses what drugs do to you and what you'll do to get them, and as he does so, Snake's voice distorts and he turns into a [[ScaledUp snakelike monster]]. At the end, he adds "Hey, do I look like the kind of guy that would do that to you? ''YESSSSSSSS!''"

** Another Sandy Hook Promise video was released in 2019, initially starting as a normal back-to-school commercial where each kid highlights a school supply their parents bought them... which then segues into kids using their stuff to hide and runaway from a school shooter (starting with a kid who puts on his headphones just as everyone else sees a kid pull out a gun...), including a boy running away while the other kids behind him get mowed down, girl wrapping up her bleeding friend's leg with her new socks, a boy smashing a window open with his skateboard to help him and his classmates escape their classroom, kids anxiously waiting at the door with scissors and sharpened pencils, and a girl hiding in the restroom and tearfully texting her mom on her first phone ever that she loves her just as someone ominously steps into the room... The PSA satirizes how school shootings have been normalized by American media, including the sales of bulletproof backpacks and other school shooter defense supplies.

** One advert basically goes through their [[BodyHorror horror folder]], complete with strokes, gangrene, and even mouth cancer. Why must they inflict this on us non-smokers?

* Without a doubt, this is one of the most favored tactics of [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets PETA]] [[AnimalWrongsGroup (and other animal rights groups to a degree)]], who resorts to using graphic images of animals being killed, accusing young children's mothers of killing animals, and repeating harsh (and debatable) warnings that eating meat will cause all manner of health problems in order to frighten the naive and squeamish. The veracity of their claims is often doubtful, as many of the videos and pictures they show portray uncommon and/or outdated practices [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzTzAPYn2AA (many people involved in animal agriculture are quite shocked at the inaccuracy and exaggeration in the materials)]], and many of their [[FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy "scientific" claims]] (such as the claim that [[ArtisticLicenseBiology humans are "natural herbivores"]]) are based on outdated or discredited research. Some ads showed ''[[NotSafeForWork naked humans]]'' being subject to the "torture" animals are put through, most likely counting on FanDisservice to carry the message.

* Without a doubt, this is one of the most favored tactics of [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets PETA]] [[AnimalWrongsGroup (and other animal rights groups to a degree)]], who resorts to using graphic images of animals being killed, accusing young children's mothers of killing animals, and repeating harsh (and debatable) warnings that eating meat will cause all manner of health problems in order to frighten the naive and squeamish. The veracity of their claims is often doubtful, as many of the videos and pictures they show portray uncommon and/or outdated practices [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzTzAPYn2AA (many people involved in animal agriculture are quite shocked at the inaccuracy and exaggeration in the materials)]], and many of their [[DanBrowned "scientific" claims]] (such as the claim that [[ArtisticLicenseBiology humans are "natural herbivores"]]) are based on outdated or discredited research. Some ads showed ''[[NotSafeForWork naked humans]]'' being subject to the "torture" animals are put through, most likely counting on FanDisservice to carry the message.

* Another classic from the bad old days: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijbovskICjk Boys Beware]]''. The short swaps the word ''child molester'' with ''homosexual'', and is JustForFun/{{egregious}} enough in its mischaracterization even of ''that'' to make [[Series/The700Club Pat Robertson]] wince. Contains lines like, "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious; '''a sickness of the mind'''. You see, Ralph was a homosexual, a person who ''demands'' an intimate relationship with members of their own sex." Make a "scared straight" joke at your own risk!