WWC posted a thread a while ago that got very shouty and had a rather offensive OP. I don't really want to make this a shouty thread, but I'm interested in discussing this issue.
She suggested that an advert should be made to support breastfeeding showing a mother dying of breast cancer because she didn't breastfeed. Upsetting, insensitive and inaccurate, yes.
But I just found out something interesting. Wyeth, the manufacturers of Prevnar (the PCV vaccine) made TV adverts in Poland and Saudi Arabia. The one in Poland showed a dying child and a desperate mother. The one in Saudi Arabia showed an empty cot. These commercials don't sound a mile away from what WWC was suggesting.
Links here.
So I guess my question is where do we draw the line with advertising. NSPCC have had some pretty upsetting adverts and I remember being really upset when dd1 was newborn by a premature baby charity advert with gingerbread men and one of the gingerbread men was uncooked.
My other question is if these adverts work and actually encourage people to take action that may save lives, is it worth it?
I argued on the other thread that there are a lot of published statistics on breastfeeding, yet these seem to have little effect. Too often, we are more swayed by a story than statistics. We son't act on an x% increase in SIDS but a well-told story or image can cause strong behavioural change. Is that true?