No Brainer

Most college students have been exposed to drugs and alcohol at one point or another. Whether it’s running into a fellow drunk student on College Ave. or at a football game, or going to a party on the weekend, many college students have been exposed to illegal substances. Even if students haven’t done drugs themselves, they’ve been around it or know about it.

In the following ad sponsored by Above the Influence, the issue of illegal drugs and the effects it has on young adults is demonstrated:

In this commercial, the father questions his son’s actions from the night before and claims that he doesn’t even know his son anymore. He goes on to list some of his son’s bad behaviors, such as ruining his mother’s car and breaking curfew. While his father speaks, he stands with a blank and clueless look on his face. Later, the ad goes on to show a boy, who is presumably this teenager’s friend, sneaking into the garage and handing the son his brain back that he left at the party he attended the night before.

The ad is packed with ethos that speaks out to a younger audience, which the ad is intended for. Growing up, it felt horrible to get in trouble, but the worst feeling was knowing that your parents were disappointed in you. This ad projects the image of a father being disappointed with the negative activities that his son was partaking in. Most teenagers and young adults can relate to the lecture given because at one point in time, they had had a similar discussion with their own parents. Whether it was breaking curfew, failing a test, or even as serious as damaging their parent’s car, we have all seemed to disappoint our parents at one point or another.

With this feeling of guilt in mind, the ad blames the son’s negative behavior on a party that he attended the night before. He “lost” his brain at his party, which is why he broke curfew, didn’t answer his phone, and crashed his mother’s car. The Above the Influence sign then appears indicating that at this party, drugs and alcohol were involved. For this reason, the ad says that the damage of the night could have been avoided if the boy was not under the influence.