Watched it yesterday and still remember so I guess it does the trick!

I still remember too. Although I wish I knew what “PIF” stood for…

Thanks! This is excellent stuff. When me and John saw that PIF (public information film), we were struck by just how good it was at conveying its message. It’s probably the best new PIF for a long time.

I care about these things, as one look at my NTS archive will prove…

While it’s certainly informative, I reckon this time it definitely IS too heavy-handed (OK, the one you posted doesn’t seem as bad because it’s the one with the female v/o). It’s right to be shocking in PIFs for speeding, drink-driving, smoking etc. because, frankly, if you do those things, you deserve to be shocked. The stroke ad isn’t as shocking as the speeding ones, but it’s still too much.

Like a lot of things these days, people are being told that they need to be worried about something happening to them. They must know that the impact of the ad is more likely to make people (especially older people) think about themselves having a stroke rather than how to determine whether someone else is having one. Anyone can have a stroke, whether you’re a healthy person or not. And it’s not as though you’re NOT going to call for an ambulance if the person you know is showing these symptoms, or have we truly turned into a nation of idiots?

I read elsewhere a post where someone was upset because one of their parents had just died of a stroke and the ad made them feel that they had suffered rather than passed away peacefully, which obviously they had been told by the doctor or whoever. You’ve got to wonder exactly who finds it acceptable to greenlight any TV commercial, PIF or no, which shows flames burning a hole through somebody’s forehead. I want them to do a PIF which tells people to STOP over-sensationalising everything.

Hmm. When someone else complained about the PIF being too heavy-handed, I wondered if it was just them, because I don’t think it’s particularly horrible compared to many road safety PIFs. Perhaps the ‘fire’ metaphor is a little misleading, but it’s there to convey the speed in which stroke can spread, rather than represent the pain the person is in. It could be that the person you quote just misinterpreted it because all they saw was their parent. Ultimately, PIFs are there to capture your attention and convey a message; after watching, I’m now in no doubt as to the seriousness of stroke and how to spot the signs. You may assume that everyone knows what to look for, but you could be in danger of assuming that someone was just drunk, if the stroke was mild enough. At least the possibility will now be in the back of your mind.

And although I agree that we’re bombarded with advice nowadays, if someone really is that worried about having a stroke, they should visit their doctor for a general health check. I really would rather that important messages were conveyed to the public than held back because of some people’s paranoia. After all, you appear to have quite a lot of faith in the nation’s common sense.

I’m in two minds about it. On the one hand, it’s pretty effective. A friend of mine got Bell’s Palsy recently and remembered this ad and it was realising that he could raise both arms that told him that it wasn’t a stroke.

On the other hand, it’s needlessly horrible and distressing and, as Monkey points out in an earlier comment, it’s likely to cause people to worry. There’s a worrying tendency to think that it’s “okay” for PIFs to be unpleasant or graphic (rather than just hard-hitting) because of the importance of the message. I remember being a bit put-off by all the “we make no apologies for the shocking nature of this advert…” talk from the PIF people about drink-driving/anti-drug/anti-drink ads in the 1990s and disliking both the arrogance and the thinking. I think it’s possible to get a message over strongly without actually upsetting people by being graphic - that old 1970s PIF with Colin Baker in it managed that perfectly well. A modern one would insist on showing the guy getting his face smashed in in slow-motion whilst a voiceover talks about bone splintering. Someone really needs to rollback the tendency to think “distressing” PIFs are okay because it’s really getting to be a bit much.

>Ultimately, PIFs are there to capture your attention and convey a message; after watching, I’m now in no doubt as to the seriousness of stroke and how to spot the signs.

Surely everyone knows strokes are serious, though? And the advert gets the message about the signs to look for across perfectly well. An old ’70s version would have just had the F.A.S.T. stuff and maybe some footage of an actor having a “fall” or some other representation. We really don’t need a close-up of a middle-aged face expressing extreme distress whilst a hole burns in their head. To be honest, I just turn it over when it’s on. I find it far too unpleasant to watch.

I don’t totally buy the theory that PIFs have got more graphic; on the Charley Says vol 2 DVD, there’s a ’70s one about rabies that has what appears to be real footage of a rabies victim, which I find more distressing than the F.A.S.T. PIF. Personally, I find the facial expression useful, as it lets me know what facial paralysis looks like (but I don’t tend to understand concepts really well until I see them). I think there’s always going to be a tough line to maintain between being attention-grabbing and going too far; this PIF doesn’t cross the line for me, but obviously it does upset some. However, as I say, I think it’s an occupational hazard; I think it’ll be hard to find PIFs on issues such as these that doesn’t upset some people.

And yes, people know strokes are serious, just like they know heart attacks are serious, but it doesn’t always mean they can recognise signs and know what to do…

There doubtless are some earlier PIFs that were graphic but I think there’s a real tendency to both normalise graphic unpleasantness in modern PIFs and, I can’t help thinking, a certain tendency to try and “outdo” what has been before. There was a recent one where a girl was shown vomiting in reverse which was clearly an attempt to shock and gross-out the viewer to make sure the PIF was “memorable” but which probably just generated complaints and people turning-over when it was on and which (importantly) would have seen any other advert pulled before it could be broadcast with “what were they thinking?” comments from the ITC. As I said before, for some reason there seems to be a mentality that it’s okay to distress or disgust people in the context of getting a safety/health message across regardless of whether it’s actually necessary.

To give an example, there was a recent PIF about drink-driving where a bloke goes to the bar and the barman plays out a scene showing what happens if someone is caught drink driving. It worked very well because it was to-the-point and hard-hitting but there was nothing grotesque or graphic shown to make people turn over. Similarly, there have been adverts in the past about not speeding in built-up areas and the human cost of drink-driving that got the message across without blood splattered over windscreens or the corpse of a dead boy every few seconds. I really don’t think these sort of things are necessary.

There are some PIFs that are graphic, but I think there’s a confusion in the case of the F.A.S.T. PIF with what is meant to be depiction of reality and metaphor. The ‘fire’ in this PIF is a metaphor for the damage that a stroke does to the brain, and I find it a useful way of understanding it. For me, I think the usefulness of the image outweighs any potential upset it might cause, because what offends people varies so much. I also don’t have a problem with the dead boy in the PIF you mention because again, he’s the metaphor for the guilt someone would carry around with them in that situation, and reminds me of the responsibility I have when I drive. You’d probably rightly say that was common sense, but it’s easy to forget when you’re in a comfortable driving seat.

As I said, I don’t really buy the theory that modern PIFs are more graphic, because I’ve found myself flinching at quite a few older ones, but I do recognise that broadcasters can get away with more explicitness these days, and that PIFs need to compete with that. I think the improvements in special effects and suchlike can produce some graphic PIFs, but I don’t often find myself revulsed by them because I know they’re too graphic to be real, and some of them have very useful imagery.

Hmm…maybe an article is in order; I certainly think the topic deserves some proper investigation.

Amusingly, performingmonkey and myself appear to be arguing the opposite way round in my first PIF article;
http://www.noisetosignal.org/tv/2008/01/the-good-o…

I suppose that proves that it’s all subject to perception and personal taste…

Firstly, Thank you Tanya for telling me what PIF means.

Secondly (and this is for everyone) regarding the nature of the PIFs; I *like* the fact that they are hard hitting. It gets the message across bluntly - that’s how it should be in my opinion.