Photoshopping together clearly incongruent images to create an absurd visual mashup can be effective in delivering a no-nonsense public service announcement.

Which is why I think this downright disturbing ad campaign against statutory rape from the Family Violence Partnership of Milwaukee, featuring headshots of little girls superimposed onto bodies of buxom women, misses the mark: The necessary unreality of it got lost. To me, the head and bodies seem to blend together just a little too seamlessly, resulting in imagery that uncomfortably edges close to real life. If I had to guess, the designers did too good a job of polishing the final product — if the head-body positioning were made to intentionally look obviously grafted-on, the message would have been clearer.

And there wouldn’t be concerns about the ads promoting the very behavior they’re meant to warn against:

Well, I guess we can give them credit for not using a too-subtle method to visualize the problem. Buuut, super-fetishizing young girls, maybe, is not the smartest approach?

Actually, I think there is an element of subtlety at play, but it’s almost wholly lost in the overwhelming visuals. Serve, the agency that cooked this one up, must have a faulty vetting system to have let this one go through.