MD Anderson Threatening Ad
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
To me, their intention is to say something to the effect that they defeat cancer, that they remove it from you, the patient.
But they specifically made the ad say the opposite. You are bringing in what you "feel they meant to say or would want to say" into the equation rather than reading what has been put on the ad itself.
This is the same way that marketers get people to think that they've said all kinds of things about products that they have not. Getting the customer to "guess what we meant" and then think that they said it and stand by the statement is a marketing trick we've talked about before.
And yes, I understand that the ad surely is not meant to say something bad. But 1) Im not 100% sure what they are trying to say and cannot determine it completely from the ad, your guess is just one possible option and 2) whatever good thing they meant to say is not said NOR implied by the ad itself but purely from a certain type of reader.
You're absolutely right. But that doesn't matter. Those that are affected by cancel that are looking for solutions will call, and that is all the advertiser cares about. This ad is totally there to emotionally drive someone.
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The bottom line is, it does not convey a defeat of cancer when you read it quickly. And you can't tell what is intended, even after long discussion.
I believe that there is every reason to believe that they are advertising that they are moving beyond cancer to treating other things.
What you think that ad implies is completely arbitrary and even less supported by the ad itself than what I think it could also mean.
End of the day, you do not know what the ad was meant to say and are guessing.
But more importantly, a casual glance at the ad does not leave someone walking by the sign with a sense of cancer being defeated. A quick read you don't even see thew word cancer. You just see the words that the guy is "coming for you".
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
To me, their intention is to say something to the effect that they defeat cancer, that they remove it from you, the patient.
But they specifically made the ad say the opposite. You are bringing in what you "feel they meant to say or would want to say" into the equation rather than reading what has been put on the ad itself.
This is the same way that marketers get people to think that they've said all kinds of things about products that they have not. Getting the customer to "guess what we meant" and then think that they said it and stand by the statement is a marketing trick we've talked about before.
And yes, I understand that the ad surely is not meant to say something bad. But 1) Im not 100% sure what they are trying to say and cannot determine it completely from the ad, your guess is just one possible option and 2) whatever good thing they meant to say is not said NOR implied by the ad itself but purely from a certain type of reader.
You're absolutely right. But that doesn't matter. Those that are affected by cancel that are looking for solutions will call, and that is all the advertiser cares about. This ad is totally there to emotionally drive someone.
Will they? It seems clear that that's not who they are marketing to. Do people with cancer call random hospital ads? Do they call ones that aren't clear that they 1) treat cancer anymore or 2) focus on it like they used to?
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And, if the doctors there can't figure out that this is a crazy ad, why would you want them treating you?
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Clearly this is a bad grammatical ad. But I think you're reading way to much into it.
Also, those that I've known that have cancer that are searching for answers will call anyone and everyone that they even think could possibly provide a solution... so yes I do think they will get calls.
As for the Drs at the hospital. They don't write or even approve these ads. Some ad agency writes them.. and some board or CEO approves them. Now you personally may feel that this ad shows a systemic problem with that facility, and that's completely up to you (and the people on 9gag).
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@Dashrender said:
Clearly this is a bad grammatical ad. But I think you're reading way to much into it.
See, that's what I feel you are doing. All I know is that the ad says nothing and you are working off of what you feel they would want you to know but not what the ad says. I'm reading nothing into it, that's the point. Getting anything from it means you have to read into it and add your own opinion rather than reading what the ad says itself.
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@Dashrender said:
Also, those that I've known that have cancer that are searching for answers will call anyone and everyone that they even think could possibly provide a solution... so yes I do think they will get calls.
But do they want calls? You are reading into it to feel that way. It's a reasonable option, but we don't know that for sure from the ad. And having gone through my mother having cancer, this would have done literally nothing. If a place was well known for cancer she would have gone on reputation, not chosen to call based solely on reading into the inability to write ad copy. That might be the worst reason for calling a medical facility ever. If I had a disease I'd want to know what medical professionals thought was a good facility and what had a good track record. That a cancer facility even needs to advertise should be cause for serious concern about it.
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Do these two lines say the exact same thing do you?
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@Dashrender said:
As for the Drs at the hospital. They don't write or even approve these ads. Some ad agency writes them.. and some board or CEO approves them. Now you personally may feel that this ad shows a systemic problem with that facility, and that's completely up to you (and the people on 9gag).
If I was a doctor there, I'd be pretty upset at this representation. But maybe they can't get discriminating doctors. They don't appear to be able to afford good advertising people. This is a pretty big blunder and super obvious.
But, like I said, if they need to advertise and aren't busy, likely they don't have good people (see other thread about how most companies can't have the good people.)
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@Dashrender said:
Do these two lines say the exact same thing do you?
At a quick glance, yes, because the striked out word is not visible without stopping and spending time to pay attention to it, something you cannot do with billboards typically.
If I take time to read it.... the first one makes zero sense. Because if cancer hasn't been defeated, it sounds like the threat has been shifted to something else. And if cancer has been defeated, what is it saying?
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@Dashrender said:
Do these two lines say the exact same thing do you?
I'd have to say no, they don't mean the same thing. But only because they didn't strikeout the ","
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If they meant to say that cancer was defeated, this doesn't imply it. If they meant that they are moving on, they forgot to mention what they are fighting instead of cancer.
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Also important to note: saw this billboard in Texas where "you" is not the same pronoun as it is in much of the country. In Texas the use of "you" alone always denotes the person to whom you are speaking singularly. It is not the general plural of English. Texas uses a Spanglish language change and their "you" usage is one of the things that is different. Using this sentence in Texas doesn't have the same sound as it does elsewhere. It's only in Texas that I've seen the ad.
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lol - I find this conversation amusing.
I don't find these two lines to be even remotely the same (the comma doesn't matter) when used in this context. Now, if this was on a paper being graded by a teacher, boss, etc, etc - fine they would more or less be the same sentence, but in this case the advertiser (in my opinion) is claiming that they are defeating cancer.
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
It's a grammatical nightmare, for the umpteenth time.
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This is an advertisement. The thing being threatened is cancer, not the patient. They are "wiping out cancer", as displayed with the red line crossing it off. Were it a grammatical correction, I would agree with you. It was probably posted on 9gag because it could certainly be taken that way, and its ambiguity is thus entertaining. However, I doubt that any reader with a double-digit IQ was actually scared by the ad and believes that AnMed is actively promoting the hunting down and killing of cancer patients. You take a look at it and view it in context. It makes perfect sense. Read between the lines. Oh, and when I said "anyone with a double-digit IQ", I was specifically not referring to people who post comments on 9gag...
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@art_of_shred said:
This is an advertisement. The thing being threatened is cancer, not the patient.
But the one thing that they go out of their way to say they are NOT threatening is cancer. It's the only clear thing definitely not being threatened.
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@art_of_shred said:
This is an advertisement. The thing being threatened is cancer, not the patient. They are "wiping out cancer", as displayed with the red line crossing it off. Were it a grammatical correction, I would agree with you. It was probably posted on 9gag because it could certainly be taken that way, and its ambiguity is thus entertaining. However, I doubt that any reader with a double-digit IQ was actually scared by the ad and believes that AnMed is actively promoting the hunting down and killing of cancer patients. You take a look at it and view it in context. It makes perfect sense. Read between the lines. Oh, and when I said "anyone with a double-digit IQ", I was specifically not referring to people who post comments on 9gag...
Remember I was pointing out how the ad is read.... quickly. The word CANCER is not visible to people reading it quickly at all. That something has been removed from the text is clear, what it is cannot be easily determined if you are passing by a billboard or airport ad.
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@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
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Hey, at least they spelled "cancer" correctly, and there's no "your" where it should be "you're". Honestly, that is better than 90% of everything I see out there anymore. It's just ridiculous.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Additionally, the red strikethrough appears to me to be there as a way to draw the eye to the word. If they wanted you to ignore it, they would make the strikethrough the same color as the text.
Not how it works. You can't compare covering up a word to highlighting a word. It makes it unreadable in the manner in which these ads are normally read - walking by or driving by.
That IS how it works. It's how ads have been since, like, forever. I couldn't even count the number of times a word in an ad had a strike-through. The whole point of the strike-through in advertisement is to draw emphasis to that exact word. It's not about correct English; it's about grabbing attention.
