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Introduction
In 2005, a marketing campaign against methamphetamine was conducted in Montana under the name of The Meth Project (TMP). The objective of the campaign is to decrease the consumption of methamphetamine or simply meth by stigmatizing it. TMP aims at increasing risk awareness, reducing perceptions of the benefits of meth use, and facilitating conversation on the issue between teenagers and their parents. The Recovery Village states that, in 2010, TMP was named the third most effective charitable organization in the world by Barrons. The campaign is primarily based on television and radio advertisements, highway billboards, and graphic images. Many of these can be somewhat disturbing as they depict young meth abusers as drug dealers and prostitutes who embitter the lives of their families and friends. Such an advertising tactic is considered to be the reason for TMPs success. Indeed, The Meth Project campaigns are as effective as they are because they induce the feeling of horror, which people cannot help but feel attracted to, and, therefore, make them consider the projects message.
The Meth Projects Advertising Tactics
To take a closer look at the methods that TMP uses in its graphic advertisements, one is to turn to the projects website. The Meth Project (n.d.) websites background is black, with the gigantic word ask depicted against the background of a red square in the middle. On the top of the main page, there are three hyper-linked headings: Get Answers, Take Action, and Speak Up. The Get Answers page provides a list of topics related to meth about which one can be interested in learning more. The Take Action page contains news, videos, donation links, and other resources for a user to educate themselves and act to the possible extent. The Speak Up page features photos, paintings, and stories of all those who want to express their emotions on the subject. In the top right corner of the main page, next to the About the Meth Project page, there is a link to the projects advertisements, often showing shocking and uncomfortable scenes.
When it comes to the approaches advertisers use to impact their audience, some classify those into three main ones: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Persona Global reports that these are known as persuasive appeals, and each can be used to convince someone of something. Ethos is the appeal to ethics, and this is the method of convincing the audience of ones character or credibility before convincing them of the speakers words. Pathos is the appeal to feelings: one is made to feel a particular emotion to persuade them or make them act. Finally, there is logos, the appeal to logic, and the attempt to convince through logic and reason: data, facts, evidence, and effective arguments. One can say that TMP does cite facts in their advertisements for instance, they say how drug abuse ruins ones life. However, these kinds of statements are too subjective to be considered the companys effort to resort to logos. What the projects managers do employ extensively is pathos: they play to peoples emotions by shocking them with explicit images and scenes which are not often seen in the media.
Another interesting aspect to consider regarding TMPs advertisements is logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are flaws in reasoning that are used to persuade the audience of something this is not factually correct. If TMP mainly resorted to logos as its persuasive appeal, it would be easier to search for such falsities; however, this is not the case. For instance, on The Meth Projects (n.d.) website there is a plethora of promotional images, one of which says: 15 bucks for sex isnt normal. But on meth it is . It is impossible to test the validity of this claim as it is an attempt to convey the way of thinking of a drug addict who is ready to sell their body for another dose. The audience is not expected to look at these words and debate their truthfulness; it is expected to become horrified at what the drugs do to a person.
In this way, TMPs advertising tactics help provoke an intuitive emotional response from the public. Walker notes that cultivating an acute sense of visual perception, adapted to the images effect and meaning, allows ones critique and analysis to be directed to where so-called common sense knowledge is built (95). The social power of the image is not just a persistent representation of a certain moment of time and space. It is a product of the subjectivity of the spectator and the larger ideological systems of the culture that produced the image (Walker 96). As a consequence, the audience views TMPs advertisements and their specific aesthetics not as an artistic perspective of social life, but as dynamic and powerful social works and watches how they affect the real world.
Moreover, TMP seems to want to resonate with peoples consciousness beyond their visceral reactions. According to Walker, this is why the advertisements reckon on the public to willingly participate in crime scenes, punishment, and victimization but from a significant distance (96). The spectatorship of crime lets people witness and absorb the pain of others without directly participating in its horrible realities. This is important to consider because TMPs images forcibly inflict on the audience the fundamental pedagogical message: this is what happens when one does meth, in all its vicious and terrifying details (Walker 96). By utilizing advertisements to give the public access to, the ability to reflect on and evaluate other peoples lives, the project makes use of the specific human fixation on the trauma and grotesque (Walker 97). This is why TMP counts on the audiences attention to their campaigns, which can be compared to ones inability to turn away when spotting the scene of an accident.
In addition to that, TMP aims to increase its effectiveness with the help of unequivocally disgusting images of physical decay and acts of sexual violence. Walker describes these as visualities of disgust, and, for the project, providing these means combining graphical warnings of the visible effects of drug abuse with depictions of drug-related crime and victimization (98). The joining of fear with disgust results in a stronger reaction than fear alone can invoke, and TMPs marketing researchers seem to be very well aware of it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The Meth Projects advertising tactics are based on the induction of the feeling of horror in the audience through graphic images of young meth users. TMP employs pathos as its persuasive appeal and, in such a way, attempts to make the public realize the nightmare that a persons life becomes when they abuse drugs. Being unable to look away from shocking visuals, people tend to pay attention to the campaigns underlying message and, therefore, start a conversation about the issue.
Works Cited
Persona Global. Ethos, Pathos, Logos: The three pillars of persuasive communication, Web.
The Meth Project. Meth Project Foundation, Inc., Web.
The Recovery Village. Montana Meth Project: Has it Curbed Teen Meth Use?, Web.
Walker, Michael F. From Homo Economicus to Homo Sacer: Neoliberalism and the Thanatopolitics of The Meth Project. Neoliberalism and the Media, edited by Marian Meyers, Routledge, 2019, pp. 91-107.
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