In the last article, we showed how serious public health messages can sometimes turn into viral jokes very quickly. Here, we look at examples where messaging has managed to hold the line. This is achieved by focusing on emotional resonance, cultural alignment and systemic change that sparked real behavioural shifts and sidestepped the irony trap.

Australia’s Grim Reaper HIV/AIDS campaign

This campaign was launched in 1987, at the same time as many hard-hitting HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, which were too shocking to become an ironic joke. The ad showed the Grim Reaper bowling over people, representing the indiscriminate advance of HIV/AIDS. The emotion intensity of the imagery created public debate and lasting awareness, without being reduced to meme culture. This is an example of fear-based messaging being a success, partly due to the urgency and unfamiliarity of the HIV/AIDS crisis at the time.

UK’S THINK! Road safety campaigns

This campaign focused on empathy and realism. In one of the advertisements, a mother imagines telling her child that a speeding driver killed their father. This narrative, because of its strength of emotion and appeals to empathy, hits audiences where it matters: their closest relationships and a sense of personal responsibility. Unlike sterile, top-down warnings or detached slogans, these campaigns draw viewers into the lived experience of loss, making it difficult to respond with humour.

New Zealand’s “Legend” anti-drink driving campaign.

Taking a different approach, this New Zealand campaign embraced humour with heart. The “Legend” campaign shows a young man stopping his friend from drink driving and being called a “legend” for doing so. The campaign aligned with youth culture and values, peer dynamics, reinforcing positive behaviour without alienating its audience. It taps into being a “mate” as giving considerable social capital. It makes the humour collaborative with the message and not at the expense of it. It resonates, doesn’t finger-wag or patronise the viewer.

Iceland’s approach to youth drinking: Textbook community engagement

One of the best success stories in health promotion campaign success comes from Iceland, where the government reduced teenage drinking rates through community-driven programmes, rather than moralising and slogans.

The campaign invested in after-school activities, increased parental engagement and created a supportive environment for young people, Iceland avoided top-down communication entirely. There were no catchy slogans to mock, just communal ownership of the problem.

Key ways to avoid the irony trap

1: Emotional depth is received better than slogans: storytelling and emotional engagement are more resilient to irony than repetitive slogans or shock tactics.

2: Collaboration beats lecturing: campaigns that involve audiences, especially youth, as participants rather than passive recipients avoid alienation and rebellion.

3: Systemic solutions reinforce messages:  when paired with environmental or policy change, as seen in Iceland, campaigns become harder to dismiss because they are embedded in real community action.

4: Cultural sensitivity matters: campaigns that adapt to the values and humour of their audience are less likely to be reappropriated as jokes.

Conclusion

While the irony trap remains a persistent challenge for public health messaging, smart design, emotional storytelling and bottom-up engagement can disarm cultural resistance. In the age of social media, where messages are rapidly reframed and reinterpreted, public health communicators must be more agile and authentic than ever.

By learning from campaigns that have defied and escaped irony, health promoters can design strategies that resonate, inspire and, most importantly, create lasting change.

Thank you for reading,

Mark Gibson

Leeds, United Kingdom, April 2025