On this day in 1984...

Turns out CCTV cameras are a lot like the Sun. If you stare at them for too long, you may never see the light of day again.

I need a better picture, but if you can't read it the poster states the following

"A bomb won't go off here because weeks before a shopper reported someone studying the CCTV cameras."

The overall message here is nothing new, but the delivery is uniquely British. Anyone that lives with a mass transit system or has been to an airport has seen these signs before. They say things like

"Report suspicious activities"

The UK likes to make their PSAs more real and the "more real" is often done by including a scare tactic. Here they are actually showing you the people you would be saving.

What makes this ad more interesting is that it is actually attributing the bomb not going off to two devices. Clearly the first is the reporters role in preventing changes. The second one is more subtle though. They are also kind of patting themselves on their back for CCTVs doing their job well enough to be a barrier to terrorism. I mean without the CCTV, regular people wouldn't get the chance to be heroes. They would just get blown up. Kind of makes you want to high-five every CCTV camera you see on the way to work, right?

This PSA treatment isn't restricted to just anti-terrorism ads. Take a PSA for taking unlicensed cabs:

"Think there's no harm in taking an unlicensed cab? Ask a rape victim."

I saw this PSA for the first time and it took me a second to see what they were saying and then I was appalled. I mean the line is shocking in itself, but when you break it down it seemingly characterizes rape victims in a very poor light. The first part questions common sense and then the second part implies a direct connection between rape and the first sentence and therefore some sort of blame. Rape is already a crime where people struggle with fault and for a government to imply this at all seems kind of irresponsible.

Some day when I actually talk to a British person it would be interesting to get their take because to the American foreigner these things are just shocking.

...And you know I probably am wrong by saying the CCTV is a classic British PSA. The more British PSA would probably show a bomb already exploded and blame the reader for letting it happen, but then again maybe they couldn't figure out how to fit in the CCTV plug with that treatment.

Comments

[marques]

The same day I blogged this a parody of the ads showed up on Boing Boing

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/26/remixes-of-the-paran.html

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