Why Skoal?

Why Skoal?

The twenty-first century is a glorious time of stunning scientific breakthroughs, a momentous period of achievement in medical advances, and an abominable and complete saturation of tyrant advertisements. Whether it be a fashionable new line of intimate new fragrances, or simply a wrist watch advertisement, the majority of advertisements seem to employ despicably unrelated, but effective methods of advertisement to ensnare the impressionable and naÐ"Їve public into swallowing everything they are told. A prime example of the erroneousness that modern advertisements are bloated with is an ad for chewing tobacco from the Skoal tobacco company. Skoal's method of advertising is extremely ineffective, especially compared to its peers, and is ultimately unethical in that it is lying to the prospective customers in attempt to sell "a good time" via driving range antics in dire attempt to put a much more positive facade on something as dangerous as tobacco chewing. The variety of skewed and outright false advertisement of this sales pitch qualifies it as the flagship of advertising folly.

Reckless behavior and fun at the expense of others' misfortunes is probably not a common direct result of tobacco chewing, but is ironically fairly symbolic of the characteristics of tobacco companies in general. These companies seem to be as addicted to falsifying the entire concept of tobacco usage as their customers are to their product, despite the extreme health risks that even kindergarteners should be aware of. Hitting the ball collector on a driving range with a golf ball has absolutely nothing to do with chewing tobacco! The sales pitch from Skoal is completely unclear. They are suggesting that if you chew tobacco, then you will have more fun in a fairly destructive, and unmistakably juvenile fashion. Even more absurd is the fact that the people in the ad do not even appear to be using the product! The concept is no different than a cotton candy company attempting to get people to try their new flavor via a snapshot of the Hindenburg disaster. There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever.

But why is Skoal so bad compared to all other advertisements, where it is common to see near pornography selling other products? Well from a business standpoint, sex sells! Although it is an unfortunate method of advertising, sex seems to work, and as Skoal's ad might not be profane, it is not much of anything. Even though advertisements often use eccentric humor to sell their product, in this case, it is poorly executed. Skoal attempts to mimic this wacky format with a comedic design that is at best, under par.

While ineffectiveness and seemingly incompetence in design of the Skoal chewing tobacco ad is highly evident, those aspects are nothing more than mere relatively harmless fallacies. The true terror of this advertisement is attributed to its unethical approach. While other advertisements do use sexuality to try to make their products appeal to a consumer, those advertisements commonly