The Shock Tactic in Advertising... UPDATE

Just read Elizabeths Pisani's view on this advertisement in the Guardian, who objects to the ad but not due to the shock tactic. She points out the inaccuracies of the ad- 500 people died if Aids in Germany in 2007, which is no where near as many people as Hitler killed. She also points out that "almost all sexual transmission of HIV in white communities in Western Europe is between [gay] men", so targeting straight women will hardly reduce the risk of HIV in gay men. The advertising agency 'Das Comitee' who did the campaign did it unpaid- perhaps this accounts for the lack of research into who they should be targeting? unless the brief stated it of course... Pisani also argues that HIV is no longer even a mass murderer in rich, developed countries, and more an "inconvenient disease that will have you taking pills for the rest of your life [and] cost taxpayers lots of money".
If the agency simply did this to promote themselves, and saw it as an opportunity to create a shock-campaign in order to receive world-wide media coverage, it definitely worked.