Re: Raditect ad denounced by Slate

[Ted de Castro <tdc@XRAYTED.COM>]

So what else is new!  This is just what that company has done since the

device was introduced in Pop Sci with the instrument in the foreground

and cooling towers in the background.  This unit has never been

advertised on technical merit - but only emotion.



Susan Gawarecki wrote:

> 

> The antinuclear crowd isn't the only one exploiting middle America's

> fear of things radioactive....

> 

> --Susan Gawarecki

> 

> Is Cantor Fitzgerald exploiting 9/11?

> ad report card Rob Walker, Jul 15, 2002, 8:21 AM

> See http://g.msn.com/0NL34064/3095 for full article

> 

> Not long after Sept. 11, Ad Report Card looked at various examples of

> marketing gambits that seemed, at best, opportunistic. (We followed up

> with this column and with reader reactions.) The normalcy pendulum has

> swung quite a bit since those days, but the debate over mixing Sept.

> 11 and commercial messages lingers. One series of ads that has gotten

> attention—and criticism—on this front comes from Cantor Fitzgerald, the

> bond brokerage firm that lost many employees in the attacks on the World

> Trade Center. ... Another campaign that's gotten a lot less attention

> than one might have thought is for a product called Raditect, which you

> can see via Ads.com (you'll need either Windows Media Player or the

> Realplayer). Viewed together, the campaigns make it clear just how

> cynical post-Sept. 11 advertising can get—and that, particularly

> compared to Raditect, Cantor Fitzgerald has nothing to be ashamed of.

> 

> The Cantor ads: <snip>

> 

> The Raditect ad: This spot opens with black-and-white footage of a

> mystery man getting out of a car and clutching a metal briefcase. An

> ominous voice-over begins: "Next time, it may not happen from jetliners

> smashing into concrete and steel." Next we're shown a happy family, Dad

> playing with the kids as Mom beams from the kitchen. "But when it

> comes"—we see the mystery man again, then a shot of a nuclear

> reactor—"whether from a dirty bomb, nuclear accident, or even an

> earthquake that produces radiation, you won't have time to rush out and

> buy this remarkable early-warning system that could save you and your

> family's lives." A product shot shows a small black box with lights,

> which start flashing as a string of shrill beeps bleat forth, before we

> again cut back to mystery man, who is opening his briefcase, which

> apparently contains a scary bomb. Now we see the ad's narrator, a

> reassuringly gray-haired man sitting in an office behind a big desk with

> an American flag at hand, as he tells us to take down a toll free number

> ("it's important") and introduces us to Raditect, "the first affordable

> radiation detector for your home, car, or office." As he explains,

> vaguely, how Raditect is able to warn us of radiation "long before it's

> on the news," we see the happy family scrambling out of the house in

> response to the urgent beeping. "It delivers the head start you need to

> safely avoid the panic and the horror of radiation." Finally we're told

> that it costs $149 and that we can learn more at the Web site

> www.homelandprotection.net, as we see closing footage of an SUV zooming

> down a remote and empty highway—presumably the happy family fleeing to

> safety.

> 

> Exploiting your fears? Now this is an ad that crosses the line. Set

> aside the almost certainly preposterous nature of the product itself.

> Whether you agree that the Cantor commercial has at its core some

> genuine feeling, you can't deny that this spot is built on the exact

> opposite. It's an incredible exercise in phoniness—some vaguely

> authoritative guy at his desk, which is probably on a sound stage and

> decorated with rented props; the cartoonish family bugging out and

> presumably one-upping the Joneses and everyone else by being the only

> escapees on the block; the evocation of "horror" and, ironically enough,

> "panic" avoidance in the course of a scare-mongering rant; the unsubtle

> nod to "homeland protection" in the related Web address (isn't Raditect

> more about "homeland escape"?). Has any advertiser to date so blatantly

> tried to cash in on the base fears of customers? In all, a thoroughly

> shameful exercise.

> ************************************************************************

> You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

> send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

> radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

> You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/

************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/