AWKARD PSA

Two summers ago, I took a course on health communication where I made my own television commercial to prevent a risk behavior (mine was chewing tobacco in boys). While making this stellar piece of art (let's just say I went up to random girls on the street and asked them what they thought of guys who chewed tobacco-taking a stab at young boys need to impress the ladies--and was quite impressed with myself, the humor of the commercial, and my ability to include the song "Any Man of Mine" by Shania Twain...excuse my modesty), I learned about all of the things that go into making a good, successful public service announcement (I have to admit that I am partial to the "This is your brain...This is your brain on drugs commercial" with the fried egg, and for a good reason if you know me well--and for the rest of you, I swear I am not a druggy who gets excited by fake attempts to make me stop using). In addition, during school  I worked for a year on focus groups to create an education program for adolescent girls and HPV, and, through this experience, I learned all of the important components of a successful educational intervention that leads to a prevention behavior (in our case an adolescent getting the HPV vaccine). Despite my background in this field (which is by no means expert), and my understanding of all the hard work and planning necessary for just one commercial or ad to come about, all I can say about this cervical cancer PSA is that it is just... SO WEIRD. It starts off and you think you are watching Harry Potter (do they have the same score composer?), a Disney movie (fairy dust perhaps?), or even a cheesy jewelery commercial ("HE WENT TO JARED"), and it ends up...leaving you confused (the initials W. T. F. come to mind). I also have a hard time understanding how this really resembles a "perfume commercial" (or why someone would want to link cervical cancer to perfume?!) and why a floating bottle that says cervical cancer on it would get anyone's attention (except to ROYALLY piss them off-but maybe that is the point). Even the tag line, "Maybe it's unfair to get your attention this way...but there is nothing fair about cervical cancer", makes me want to respond...well, "Maybe it is unfair that I even have to watch this" (as I abruptly change the channel). Every time I see it on TV (which is a lot lately-- cough, cough, cervical cancer perfume, STOP STALKING ME), I roll my eyes, get a little ticked off, and sometimes even laugh. None of these reactions are correct (or well appropriate) for a PSA aimed at getting me to have a Pap Test for a very serious disease. All in all, if this ad is any indication of what's to come for future PSAs by GSK, I can offer some advice...get a new marketing department. Seriously. This shit is bananas...B-AN-AN-AS.