Heart Foundation apologises for offensive ads
The Heart Foundation has responded to feedback on its latest public awareness campaign, “Heartless Words”, and announced that the campaign advertisements will no longer run in their current form across media and social media channels.
“To all the people who have been offended by our campaign, we apologise, and to all those who provided their feedback, we have listened,” said chairman of the Heart Foundation Chris Leptos.
“We tried to take a bold and emotive approach. We misjudged it. We had never intended to further hurt people already struggling with heart disease, or to further pain loved ones who have lost people to heart disease. It is clear, however, that many people feel we did both of those things.
“To all of those people, we say a heartfelt ‘Sorry’. Helping to relieve the suffering caused by heart disease is at the centre of everything we do. This campaign was devised with the best of intentions – to save lives – but it has had an unforeseen impact.”
The campaign used an emotional appeal to deliver the message that when we neglect our own hearts, we risk breaking the hearts of those who love us. The campaign was designed to convince people to have a Heart Health Check.
Heart disease is largely preventable. Most heart attacks are caused by high blood pressure, high cholesterol and lifestyle factors.
It is estimated that if all Australians at risk had a Medicare-funded Heart Health Check over the next five years, up to 76,500 heart attacks and strokes, and up to 9100 deaths, could be prevented.
A new Heart Foundation campaign will be coming soon.
The Heart Foundation has welcomed the announcement by Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, to invest a further $4 million to tackle two of Australia’s biggest killers – heart disease and stroke.
This is a drop in the ocean, so donate
The numbers have been crunched.
City dwellers are getting fatter, faster. Obesity is a growing problem around the globe.In Australia it’s becoming an epidemic. Check your Body Mass Index and do something about it.
Of the millions of Australians only 1500 signed the change.org petition. I was not one of them. In my opinion the main reason the ad was completely pulled is because the Heart Foundation is non Government and relies on the public for funds. They modified the ad which should have been enough. Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of death in Australia, with an average of 51 people dying every day and too many people are complacent, they need a wake up call. Their inaction, in spite of free heart checks, costs the nation millions each year. The public has to pay for these idiots who complain about everything.
There are harsh realities in life. Highlighting how the death of a parent can affect a child is living in the real world. As far as I am concerned and I have been involved in charities for many years, when it comes to fundraising, the chance of a seemingly tough campaign motivating new supporters greatly outweighs the potential risk of offending a few. Some of whom may not have ever donated to the charity anyway.
Both my parents died in a car crash when I was a child. Should all ads highlighting the need for seat belts be removed? Why aren’t people complaining about that? I hope those people making a stink are fortunate enough to never need the services of the Heart Foundation, and a reminder to the whingers: you are not the only one who has a relative who has heart disease or died from the disease – we all do.