I don't smoke anymore but that ad would make me wage a campaign against using little kids in commercials before it would make me quit smoking.
Couldn't have been a fun day at work for that little dude.

No, I think that's why I start bawling when I see it, there's no way that kid is acting they've just set up cameras and quietly ditched him methinks. Poor dude! *Bwaaaaa-boo-hoo*

I saw this on the teevee while CSI (I think) was on and thought it was part of the show. The plot on CSI was some guy kidnapping and murdering people and then a child was reported missing. I glanced at the screen, saw this ad & remember thinking "OMG, those writers are sick fucks, that kid is going to get abducted and brutally slaughtered, where's the remote, I'm not having this shit on".
To me it screams exploitative, sensationalistic heart string yanking of the basest kind. Ugh.

*fights urge to kidnap the kid and take him home*

I can't watch this just now, but let's just say I'm completely unsurprised that it's Australian. I think the local industry have been trying to out-shock-ad each other since the old AIDS/Grim-reaper-goes-bowling ads.

At least it's not the "you should've been there" one...

(also, for the childless, does no-one care if we smoke ourselves to death?)

It's all about TEH CHULDREN!!!!1!, pompomtom. Have you seen all the new anti-boozing ads showing parents getting shitfaced in front of their children? There are huge billboards around town showing the POV of someone holding a bottle with a scruffy, neglected looking little girl gazing up at them. I drive under one most days and think that poor, miserable little girl could do with a bath, a clean dress & a brush through her hair. And probably a sammich, too. People that drink and smoke are obviously unfit to be parents.

This ad made me want to start smoking! FUCK the little bastard! Well no, not really, but fuck whatever twat thought this would get someone to stop smoking.

It seems near impossible to produce an ad to convince people to stop doing some harmful thing like smoking, drinking, drinking and driving, doing drugs, etc., without pandering.

I've seen hundreds of these over the years and the vast majority of them are unctuous twaddle.

Whatever. I've seen so many ads that try to appeal to my emotions that I just don't care any more. Try again, advertising dudes.