American Heart Associations 2007 Super Bowl Ad Shows Real Heart Attack

No doubt, the American Heart Association wanted to leave a lasting impact with their ad, "Gotta Have Heart." The American Heart Association's message is an important one, considering that heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. You can view the American Heart Association's ad below.

This was the first time the American Heart Association has had an ad during the Super Bowl. I found this ad to be surprisingly violent. I was so bothered by the violence, I could hardly watch it, and missed the most important part of the ad: the information for a free on-line test to assess your heart's risk.

I think what caught me off guard was that the heart was actually pretty cute, even though he was a middle aged man. But even a middle aged man, dressed in a puffy read heart costume can be cute, even cartoonish. I didn't expect the rough treatment he received from the thugs, high cholesterol, overweight and diabetes.

I know the message was that high cholesterol, overweight and diabetes are literally just as rough with your actual heart as these 3 were with the puffy, red, costumed man. I also know that it was "just TV" and not a real heart-shaped man getting tossed against brick walls and kicked in the face.

Maybe the American Heart Association felt that going with a more cartoon-like violence would have watered down their message. Maybe they were right. It could be that the American Heart Association was targeting men, and so included more violence. But statistically, more women die of heart disease than men. Then again, maybe I'm the only one who found this ad hard to watch.

Steve Andrezejewski, CCO of King Pharmaceuticals, the sponsor of the American Heart Association ad had this to say about the Super Bowl ad:

"With nearly a third of the 72 million adults who have high blood pressure unaware of the serious cardiovascular risks the condition poses if left untreated, we felt the scope of the problem demanded a stage with the Super Bowl's broad demographic reach. At the same time, we knew we had to break through the clutter to motivate the audience to take the American Heart Association's online risk assessment quiz. We're confident the creative concept of the ad will make it a very effective means of spreading our message to the millions of people with uncontrolled high blood pressure as well as to the people who influence their health decisions."

If there were more people like me, who didn't notice the information about the on-line risk assessment quiz because they were too distracted by the violence, then King Pharmaceuticals and the American Heart Association's ad will not have done what it was supposed to do.