Talking of the bias towards rationality...
"Know Your Limits" is part of a long-running campaign. There's another example, from last year, here.
It goes without saying that the problem of binge-drinking and its social effects is a very serious one. Which is why I'm concerned about how and whether this kind of advertising works. What follows is speculative and inquiring rather than evidence-based.
When I suggest there's a rational bias at work here, I don't mean that the ad itself is unemotional. Clearly it is designed to have some kind of visceral impact on the viewer (we can debate how much of one, but let's leave that to one side). My question is, what's the model of human behaviour that purports to link the experience of watching this ad in the cinema (as I did last night) with the "moment of purchase" - or in this case, the moment of being blind drunk at 2am in a group of similarly pissed mates?
I imagine it's meant to work via metaphor: when I'm drunk, I'll remember my mild revulsion at that man in the ad proposing all manner of silly stunts, think to myself "That's just like me right now", and stop myself from throwing up into the gutter.
As I say, I've not looked at any data, but to me that suggests an extremely implausible optimism about the power of the frontal cortex.
This is exactly the kind of problem that would benefit from a serious investigation into the mental processes of a mind under the influence, and how/whether it's affected by recently absorbed communications. Perhaps the client and agency have already done this, rather than rely on the conventional and deeply flawed assumptions about decision-making that are embedded in marketing-think. But I'd be surprised if they'd done so and come up with this as an answer.
