In these increasingly divided times, it’s hard to get people to form a consensus on almost anything. Earlier this week, however, the Heart Foundation managed to unite people in outrage thanks to their incredibly offensive ad campaign, ‘Heartless Words’.
The ad featured people telling their loved ones things like, “I promised you my heart… I’ve given it away”, “In time, this family will be filled with loss… But I won’t care, ‘cos I’ll be gone” and “It’s not just my heart I don’t care about… it’s yours”.
Yikes. Understandably, people were pretty appalled.
Just heard a @heartfoundation ad with a little kid saying ‘Mum never loved me. If she did she would have looked after her heart’ This isn’t just bad, this is a terrible terrible ad. Imagine how any kid who has lost a parent to heart disease feels when hearing this
— Dee Madigan (@deemadigan) May 27, 2019
The potential psychological damage as a result of your ad is something of great concern. As an allied health professional I am appalled. To who do I address a formal complaint?
— Dan Solomon (@brokendanau) May 28, 2019
The Heart Foundation ad is offensive & dangerous,I haven’t survived a 10hr heart attack & left with a serious brain injury to have this Ad point the finger at me with their scare & guilt campaign. Ads like these cause stress,stress causes #HeartAttacks #abcnews Just wrong! Ian
— ?IanGraves (@xskinn) May 28, 2019
The campaign seemed to suggest that developing heart disease is a conscious choice people make because they don’t care about their families, meaning it relied on an entirely false pretence.
Even if you accept that people with unhealthy habits consciously choose to develop them, you also have to accept that heart disease is only ever the result of lifestyle choices, which completely ignores genetic factors and other influences that can lead to the development of heart disease.
While their ad succeeded in generating outrage, doing so isn’t really the best way to draw attention to your cause if you’re a charity trafficking in goodwill.
As a heart attack survivor, I have raised money and supported the heart foundation for the @hbfrun every year for the past 3 years. Due to this ad campaign, I will no longer be doing so.
Very disappointed.— perthstorm™ (@perthstorm) May 28, 2019
I can’t believe the @heartfoundation is doubling down on the disgusting #heartless campaign. Damaging, destroying your credibility and driving donors away in droves. I will #neverdonateagain – congratulations to HF management.
— Lauren Anne (@Lauren_Gatta) May 28, 2019
After initially supporting the ad, explaining that they had opted for a “bold approach” that was “necessary to kick off a conversation about heart disease”, the Heart Foundation has today announced that they are pulling the ad, and have offered an apology to those who found the ad to be in poor taste (AKA everyone).
Not sorry. This is so wrong. #heartfoundation pic.twitter.com/2lHcJi4I9K
— ?I voted for Fairness (@DMacKinnonAU) May 28, 2019
Heart Foundation board chairman Chris Leptos said:
“To all the people who have been offended by our campaign, we apologise, and to all those who provided their feedback, we have listened.”
The Heart Foundation’s chief medical adviser told the ABC:
“The Heart Foundation has decided to withdraw from this campaign because of the reaction they’ve received from several quarters in the media and in the community that perhaps the call went a little bit too far and has upset too many people.”
I’m not sure how easy it will be for the Heart Foundation to come back from this — it’s bound to follow them for a while, but I think it’s pretty difficult to ‘cancel’ an organisation as big as the Heart Foundation.
I just want to know how so many people presumably signed off on the ad without considering the fact that blaming people for their own heart problems, and suggesting that people with heart problems don’t care about their families, might not be the best way to get people to care about heart disease. In this day and age, you’d have better luck getting people to care about something by making it a meme. Shock tactics are so 2000 and late.