{"id":10708,"date":"2025-10-09T17:41:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/2025\/10\/09\/why-some-topics-demand-advertising-that-breaks-the-rules\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T18:43:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:43:56","slug":"why-some-topics-demand-advertising-that-breaks-the-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/news\/why-some-topics-demand-advertising-that-breaks-the-rules\/10708\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Some Topics Demand Advertising That Breaks the Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Public health messaging has long relied on fear and tragedy, but that doesn\u2019t always move the needle, and not every cause can be served by playing it safe. In this session, lead creatives from Duncan Channon unpack the risks and bold strategic choices behind the Facts Fight Fentanyl campaign launched for the California Department of Public Health, showing why sometimes the only way to cut through fear, stigma, and misinformation is to break from traditional PSAs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public health messaging has long relied on fear and tragedy, but that doesn\u2019t always move the needle, and not every cause can be served by playing it safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":10709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,3],"topics":[2],"class_list":["post-10708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-awnewyork-2025-sessions","tag-brands-marketers","topics-editorial"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.0 (Yoast SEO v28.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Some Topics Demand Advertising That Breaks the Rules | AW360<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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