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First and foremost, we're going to warn you that the video above may not be safe for work, children, or the faint of heart.
It's from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario's latest ad campaign. In the video, a young sweet sous-chef with her whole future ahead of her happens to slip on some grease, spilling a vat of boiling water all over herself and horribly scalding her face. While she's on the floor letting out bloodcurdling screams as the skin on her face peels off in ribbons, a young blond-haired co-worker says the obvious: "There's been an accident!"
There are more. You can watch a man who happens to love his family as he explodes, flies off a building, and smashes into a truck. Or how about the girl who falls off the ladder onto a coffee table, or the man who gets impaled by steel spikes? All have the same random co-worker screaming "There's been an accident!" followed by the WSIB's slogan: There really are no accidents.
We were a bit shocked when we saw these ads on YouTube, but even more shocked when we saw them on prime-time television. WSIB Chair Steve Mahoney said in a recent interview that "We need to shock people into understanding the staggering number of workplace injuries and fatalities," and added that “This is not going to be a feel good campaign. We won’t feel good until workplace injury and fatality numbers start to decrease.”
Originally, the WSIB had planned on airing the spots only on night-time television. When CBC recently broadcasted the ads during a Saturday afternoon NHL game, however, it prompted extreme reactions from viewers, and the network pushed the ads back to twilight hours. Mississauga Transit recently refused to show the print versions of the ads on their buses because they found them too graphic.
While shock tactics do get people talking, is it really the best way of sending a message? Other shocking ad campaigns for such causes as smoking and speeding have proved effective in North America and all over the world––but with each bloodcurdling scream, with each chunk of flesh we see peeling off, are we not becoming more and more desensitized?
Darrell Hurst, a VP at the ad agency which produced the spots, said in a recent interview, "I don't think we were going for shock value or sensationalism. For us, it was about painting very real pictures."
We'll let you watch, should you so choose, and judge for yourselves.
Thanks to Best Week Ever for the tip.
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the ads have been picked up by Gawker and other American blogs. they think we are badass for airing them! haha..
http://gawker.com/news/wicked-psa%2C-dude/-327535.php
best comment: "Why can't Canada just model their PSAs after NBC's? Just get someone with the effete qualities of Sean Hayes - like native son Jay Baruchel - to calmly speak out against teenage boom-boom?""
I think the sous chef one should win an award. It just sticks in your mind, unlike those "This guy is a CRIPPLE NOW" ads in the subway. And, really, I think it should also be shown during regular hours.
I recall watching Die Hard during Sunday afternoons...
I remember some WCBO ads from the olden days when I was a kid. They featured guys getting pieces of nail in their eye and hydro linemen getting electocuted and so on. You didn't actually see the guy's face in the lineman ad, but there were body parts twitching and convulsing. For the nail-in-eye ad you did actually see the tiny fleck of metal spring back toward dude's unprotected eye and then he winces and drop the hammer at time of impact.
Pretty intense stuff to see on TV at 5 or 6 years of age. If they thought it was good enough to traumatize us during Seasame Street in ages past, let's get on with traumatizing today's kids in prime time.
I can't watch that kitchen burn commercial anymore. After being badly burned (2nd degree) in my own kitchen a few weeks back and knowing how it instantaneously just peels your skin away, the thought that this girl's entire face is being burned (even though it's fake) just freaks me out. I change the channel every time it comes on.
There's this one too, which I think actually misses the tone of the other ones:
It doesn't really have the shock value that the others do.
Carrie: I used to work as a cook at an Italian restaurant, so I know exactly what you mean. I forever had burns on my fingers, so much so that I used up an entire aloe plant and had to throw it out. They did an incredible job on the realism of all of these commercials.
Funnily enough, when I was working at another restaurant I ended up needing the WSIB because my co-worker threw out a knife and it stabbed me in the wrist when I was taking out the garbage. Got me a nasty scar in the process.
I'd like to note that I no longer work in the food service industry, partly because of my accident prone nature.
And Johnnie: I can't see your video, but I'm guessing you mean this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb22mvWavsc
I agree, it's not as effective because we don't actually see him get hurt. He's just hanging out in a casket. Nothing shocking there.
"...with each bloodcurdling scream, with each chunk of flesh we see peeling off, are we not becoming more and more desensitized?"
For some people like me (wackos?), the desensitizing happened long ago. The one with the girl falling off the ladder is hilarious.
I absolutely hate this ad. Everytime it shows on tv, I change the channel. I'm not exactly against showing things as they are, but I think they are taking it to a whole new level of shock tactics. For me, it doesn't matter how many times I've already seen it: it makes me sick everytime. For a few seconds I can almost feel that woman's pain (or what I think she would be feeling). For someone too young to fully understand it, I do believe that watching it over and over may desensitize him/her. I find it a poor way of trying to get an imporatnt message across...
This is an elaborate social marketing campaign orchestrated to manipulate the public into talking about accidents, safety and prevention rather than talking about the failure of workers compensation boards to compensate the victims. WCBs in each Canadian province (and in the US) have come under a lot of scrutiny for their avoidance of paying fair compensation to disabled workers. The fact that people are talking about the ads rather than the dysfunctionality of the WCB system shows that this orchestrated social manipulation campaign is working.
WCBs in Canada and the US represent employers (the only ones paying into the fund). Therefore WCBs will do whatever they can to lower fees for corporations. One way is by denying compensation payments to disabled workers. But this would be socially unacceptable unless the public can also be manipulated into believing that the worker is somehow negligent or at fault for causing the accident. In this social marketing campaign, WCBs are subtly adopting the language of the anti-drunk-driver campaign - " zero tolerance" "negligence", etc. to manipulate public attitudes towards injured workers. They also use the term "accidents" rather than "injuries" to take the focus away from the person and onto the event. These ads, and other orchestrated 'social engineering' techniques lay the foundation for WCBs to justify a reduction in injury compensation payments to disabled workers by manipulating public attitudes toward disabled workers.
Those injured workers in the videos would realistically spend the rest of their lives in poverty fighting the WCB for compensation.
The way to reduce injuries is to make companies accountable for workplace safety violations through realistic fees, not protect unsafe companies from these higher fees by denying disabled workers' claims.
If you think the WSIB's ads are scary, check out the Canadian Injured Workers Society at http://www.ciws.ca for a real eye-opener!