Statutory Rape Ad Causes Confusion

The Family Violence Partnership in Milwaukee, commissioned the ad agency Serve, to raise awareness of statutory rape, which they did through a series of in-your-face ads like these ones.


I'm not so sure about the effectiveness of these ads, I'm not even sure what the message is exactly. Also, I haven't been able to figure out who their target audience is in this whole thing.

I suppose the ad agency is trying to get the point across that if you see a little girl and you have a mental image of her as a sexual object, you need help. My problem with that line of thinking, is that if you are a pedophile, you're not going to change your views on young children because you see an ad of a young girl with enormous breasts.

Besides, pedophiles most likely aren't envisioning little girls with large breasts when they see them, they are probably envisioning little girls with little breasts. Pedophiles seek children, so the ad doesn't seem like it applies to them.

To me, all I see is a little girl with huge breasts, a freak of nature. But seeing as breasts are breasts no matter who's sporting them, I'm still checking them out. Does that mean I need help? Am I the target audience?

I don't think this series of ads are very well thought out. I think it lacks a definitive value proposition and its message is scattered. I suppose the argument can be made that any advertising is good advertising, but in this case we're not even sure what is being advertised, so it would be near impossible to argue the ads merits when we haven't a clue what they might be.

I'm curious as to what your thoughts might be. Have I missed the point? Is this type of ad campaign actually effective?

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