From smoking to seatbelts: hard-hitting safety campaigns that made a difference [theguardian.com]

^{Don't Die of Ignorance billboard, part of an Aids awareness campaign from 1987. Photograph: Ltd/REX/Shutterstock}

By Mabel Banfield-Nwachi, The Guardian, September 16, 2023

Cancer charities and health campaigners are calling for a return to hard-hitting advertisements – common in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s – to help tackle public health problems. Below are some of the key public health ads of past decades.

The 1987 Aids awareness campaign, Don’t aid Aids, was the Thatcher government’s response to the emerging public health crisis. The advertising campaign, broadcast on TV, billboards and in leaflets sent out to every home, is sometimes referred to as the Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign, or the Tombstone campaign.

The TV commercial starts with an explosion, followed by discordant music. Then an industrial drill bores into rock before the word “Aids” is chiselled into the polished surface of a granite tombstone. A Don’t Die of Ignorance leaflet drops on to the headstone, along with a bouquet of white lilies.

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