PLAY

“Rave”

A shrewd and well-executed burst of anti-Ecstasy propaganda, this 30-second clip works by sowing doubt about the integrity of the product and the person selling it. The Ecky-peddling scoundrel does seem eminently untrustworthy, boasting off offloading aspirins and dog-worming tablets onto his gullible punters. “You’d be off your head to trust a dealer” is a sharp, memorable slogan that may well have caused a few people to pause for thought before shelling out for pills of uncertain composition. Produced by Scotland Against Drugs, whose other ads of this era - the brilliantly animated grotesquerie of “Lad’s Night Out,” the unsettling “Photograph” - are well worth checking out on YouTube.

  • Simon Reynolds