Canadian teens not smoking, are still farting

The drop in teenage smoking rates in Canada—down to just 15 percent, per this new ad campaign—has come at a steep price: No one ever has a lighter handy when you need to set your farts on fire. A Pyrrhic victory, indeed. The "15 and Falling" campaign, from Nova Scotia's health department, also has an interesting Web component, maintaining a list of people, bands, TV shows and more that also (like smoking) used to be cool but now suck. "This is where we celebrate their suckitude," says the site. This stuff will probably engage the audience a bit more than the usual anti-smoking work. Second spot after the jump. Via Osocio.

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Filed under Anti-smoking, Canada, Nudd, PSAs
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FDA unveils 36 warning labels for cigarettes

The Food and Drug Administration today unveiled 36 proposed designs for new warning labels on cigarette packs, required under a new law that gives the FDA power to regulate tobacco products for the first time. The agency wants feedback, and will pick nine labels next June to use on packages beginning next October. There are a few gross ones, though frankly the imagery could be worse (and is worse in other countries). My favorite is probably the one above, which appears to be based on the scene in Poltergeist when Craig T. Nelson stands transfixed next to the gaping jaws of hell. See all 36 images here. What do you think of them? And will they have any effect on smokers? Via The Awl.

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Filed under Anti-smoking, Nudd, Packaging, Politics
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Don't smoke, you dirty, lazy, disgusting fool

I say, old bean, adjust your monocle toward this corking anti-tobacco billboard from 1915. Erected in Zion, Ill., it puts even the bluntest "Truth" ads to shame by questioning the very manhood of local smokers and dip-chewers. "Cut it out, you fool," the ad says of the "dirty, filthy, disgusting, degrading habit." It's like getting slapped with a dueling glove. I'm guessing life in Zion was leisurely enough that passersby had time to stop and read all that stuff. Black and WTF via Buzzfeed.

Filed under Anti-smoking, Kiefaber, Vintage
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Smoking likened to being eaten by zombies

Zombies are everywhere, it seems, even in American Legacy's latest "Truth" commercials. Timed to the launch of The Real World's 24th season (Jesus!) on MTV, we get Zombieville, a Real World parody with young people on a reality show tormented by the undead. And for a change, it's not each other. The trailer is below; see the first two episodes after the jump. This all sounds miserably convoluted and overly high-concept, but the episodes so far are decent—a mix of goofy gore and thankfully minimal anti-smoking rhetoric. (Smoking and zombies both kill you is the basic premise.) Any campaign where a snotty geek gets his head torn off is aces with me. If only this crew had cigarette lighters, they could set the zombies ablaze. Instead, these goody-goods have plump, healthy, flavorful lungs for those monsters to munch on. The spots will air in breaks during the MTV show this fall. Arnold helped with story lines, but the spots were produced in-house by MTV.

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Filed under Anti-smoking, Arnold, Gianatasio, MTV, Parody, Truth, Zombies
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Smokers flame out in Swedish student spot

This student work from Sweden reveals a serious hidden danger of smoking: that it causes you to spontaneously combust at parties! Young people are getting used to catching on fire like this—it's been happening to skateboarders, too. But from a smoker's point of view, this is infinitely worse than another recently revealed side effect of smoking: that it causes people near you to catch on fire. "The metaphor, that smoking would be like setting fire to your own body, inspired and scared us at the same time," say the creatives behind the ad. Unfortunately, the stylish approach here might inspire more young people to smoke rather than scare them away from it. Via Osocio.

Filed under Anti-smoking, Europe, Nudd, Student work
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Ads liken cigarettes to glass-filled popsicles

American Legacy's "Truth" is back with new ads from Arnold that feature a laughably dangerous fictional popsicle called Shards O' Glass to represent how cigarette companies continue to sell a product they admit to be harmful. Not only are these ads funnier and less sanctimonious than the usual "Truth" fare, they raise the broader question of whether cigarette companies are guilty of hypocrisy or paradox. The sad thing is, I'm sure someone would eat Shards O' Glass in real life, probably after a few bowls of Blasting Cap Crunch. Second spot after the jump. UPDATE: So yeah, the spot below is from 2004. The "Spheres" ad below that is new, as Legacy has brought the campaign back this summer.

Filed under Anti-smoking, Arnold, Kiefaber, Truth
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Smokers are destroying kittens and puppies

If you can't stop smoking for your own benefit (or the benefit of other people around you), do it for the puppies and kittens of the world. That's the message of two commercials in Virginia's anti-smoking campaign from Barber Martin in Richmond—the same campaign that brought us the creepy man-bunny spot. Check out the cat spot after the jump. I'm all for anti-smoking campaigns, but these seem like peripheral issues compared to your own lung cancer, though I suppose whatever works. I might just pick up cigarette butts off the sidewalks now. Maybe they should expand it to an anti-litter campaign.

—Posted by Christine Hall

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Filed under Animals, Anti-smoking, Barber Martin, Hall, PSAs
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Big Tobacco now torturing helpless bunnies

A grimly determined bunny (OK, a guy in a bunny suit) gets hassled by some grimly evil Big Tobacco dudes in this grim Barber Martin spot for the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation. Mr. Ears is pressured to leave the forest because the trees are needed to make cigarettes, but of course he doesn't hop away willingly. His tortured cry at the end is in the best Method acting tradition, even if his outsized, floppy feet and cottontail aren't. In the closing shot, standing downcast and defeated in the ruined landscape, he could really use a cigarette. Or maybe one of those Nicorette tubes! (Hey, it's better than those endless tracheotomy spots from American Legacy. Happy 10th anniversary, fearmongers!) Check out a second new spot from Virginia after the jump, in which two teens in love text about how great and non-smoky they smell.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

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Filed under Animals, Anti-smoking, Barber Martin, Gianatasio, PSAs
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Look what your very stupid smoking can do

The Foundation for a Smokefree America goes the shock route with spots from The Colony asking people to be considerate and not smoke in public. They show smokers flicking cigarettes into the street and setting pedestrians and cars dramatically on fire. The visuals are unexpected and arresting, but the exaggeration does nothing for the cause, and I doubt the metaphor will communicate anything to young people about the dangers of second-hand smoke. The ads play like outtakes from big-budget Hollywood action movies, casting the smokers as disaffected anti-heroes who cause mayhem and aren't held accountable for their actions. In bringing the heat, they end up looking cool—and that's what the teens and young adults will identify with. Via Ads of the World.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Anti-smoking, Colony, Gianatasio, PSAs
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Ex-smokers are awkward, dangerous people

I don't really understand where these new "Become an ex" anti-smoking spots (from American Legacy, the NATC, the Ad Council and GSD&M Idea City) are coming from. The premise seems to be that ex-smokers need to relearn how to bowl and operate forklift trucks. (See the forklift ad after the jump.) I say: As long as they're making life changes, why not aim a little higher? Take up squash, or shoot for a job in middle management. I suppose that would be difficult, though, as recently reformed nicotine addicts are clearly awkward, dangerous and stupid. At the very least, get that one guy away from the heavy machinery.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

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Filed under Ad Council, American Legacy Foundation, Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, GSD&M Idea City, PSAs
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French ads compare smoking with oral rape

There's an interesting debate going on in Paris about these new anti-smoking ads, which liken teen cigarette addiction to forced oral sex. The images themselves are mildly scandalous, though they don't quite seem to match with the tagline, "To smoke is to be a slave to tobacco." But beyond their vaguely pornographic motif, the ads have sparked a fascinating and complex discussion about sexual abuse. According to The New York Times, one commenter on the anti-smoking site said the campaign "trivializes sexual abuse—worse, it implies guilt on the part of the abused." That's a pretty valid point. In fact, the analogy really falls apart if you take it past the initial impression of "You're taking it from the man." In the end, all this debate over mixed metaphors is probably secondary to the fact that the ads are simply not effective. As France's own anti-smoking chief told La Parisien newspaper, "This will shock adults while not scaring kids." Via @caff on Twitter.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Anti-smoking, Controversy, Europe, Griner, PSAs
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Smoker gets old fast in eerie Canadian spot

DDB Toronto goes the horror-movie route with this anti-smoking spot for the Canadian Cancer Society, in which an attractive young woman takes a drag off a fag and instantly transforms into a haggard old goat. "Every cigarette you smoke can take years off your life," says the copy. The ad gets high marks for creepiness, though one could argue that a good way to keep from getting old and wrinkly is to smoke more, thus boosting your chances for an early exit, before those awkward elderly years hit. In fact, if smoking made people prematurely wrinkly, as opposed to prematurely dead, there'd be a lot fewer smokers around.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Anti-smoking, Canada, DDB, Freaky, Nudd
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If smoking kills you, you have to stop killing

Cross some Adult Swim-style visuals with South Park attitude, add a dash of '70 Justice League sensibility, and what do you get? I'd have guessed a stinking mess. Surprise! This European Union anti-smoking campaign, which follows the exploits of a quartet of butt-kicking superhero freaks called the Helpers, is fantastic x 4. With channels on DailyMotion and YouTube, this campaign provides what American Legacy's scare tactics never have: a valid reason to quit. Why harm yourself (and slowly destroy others via second-hand smoke) when you could live longer and brutally hack humanity to pieces? Makes sense to me! "Serkill," above, which is the best Helpers vignette (though the rest are fine, too), depicts a serial killer of pizza delivery men who's too smoked-out to chase down new prey. Once he plucks the cancer-sticks from his pie-hole, it's mayhem and murder to go! These clips transcend linguistic and cultural barriers and stand up to repeat viewings. And when's the last time you wanted to watch an anti-smoking ad twice? In fact, I think I'll cue up a second slice of Helpers … right after I call for a large pepperoni!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, PSAs
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Monkeys glad you are addicted to cigarettes

Clarity Coverdale Fury puts a memorably literal spin on the old monkey-on-your-back cliché in this Quit Plan anti-smoking spot. Sure, the baboon doesn't tear out that office drone's windpipe, but cigarettes do similar damage over time. It's actually handy having a back-seat chimp who helps you smoke and leaves your hands free for driving. That's an auto-safety option on par with OnStar—though if you locked yourself out of the car, the chimp would probably just grunt and speed off. The simians shouldn't be so smug. They're addicted to bananas—which, coincidentally, are the focus (sans monkeys, sadly) of the latest American Legacy anti-smoking ad. They can also be smoked, and can become quite a habit. Or so I hear.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Animals, Anti-smoking, Clarity Coverdale Fury, Gianatasio, PSAs
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Big Tobacco ad interviewer meets his match

I'd grown weary of American Legacy's fake-job-interview "Truth" spots from Arnold, but the latest iteration, this Web-only clip called "Nostradamus," ranks among the campaign's best. The phony Big Cig exec almost gets one-upped by a guy who frankly comes off more like a professional actor or repressed psychopath than a job seeker unaware he's being filmed for an anti-smoking commercial. Anyway, he challenges the notion that the tobacco business will cause 1 billion deaths around the world this century, pointing out that the world could end on December 23, 2012, at least according to Nostradamus. If the 16th-century French apothecary and reputed seer is correct, the guy says, that's when "all the planets align ... it'll throw off the gravitational force, we'll go out of orbit, we'll leave this galaxy, and we'll just go into oblivion." The interviewer replies, "Um ... why are you lookin' for a job, then?" More to the point: If the world really will end in three years, now's the time to start smoking.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Previously on AdFreak:
Legacy's mock interviews getting a little old

Filed under American Legacy Foundation, Anti-smoking, Arnold, Gianatasio, PSAs
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Smokers are weirdos in BecomeAnEx spots

Although its youth-targeted "Truth" anti-smoking ads are better known, American Legacy also has an "Ex" initiative, designed to convert adults who smoke into ex-smokers. GSD&M Idea City has a couple of new "Ex" spots airing now, including the one above, in which a shopkeeper takes an uninvited spin in a delivery truck on his cigarette break because he so intensely equates driving with smoking. A couple of knee-jerk reactions: 1) The guy's got a bad haircut. 2) He's a rugged individualist who plays by his own rules, living out the fantasy of all those sad smokers huddled in office doorways. He'll become their hero, and they'll keep smoking as a sign of admiration and support. 3) Most delivery guys I've met would've punched out his lights. Now that would've given him "a new way to think about quitting." In another new "Ex" spot (unavailable online), a woman blends a frozen drink at work. What, Legacy's got a problem with alcohol now, too? She'll be tons of fun at the office Christmas party!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Previously on AdFreak:
Legacy's mock interviews getting a little old
Big Tobacco now hiring in new 'Truth' spots

Filed under American Legacy Foundation, Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, GSD&M Idea City
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Cigarette-butt mosaics reveal smoking's toll

It might seem clichéd to compare deaths caused by smoking to those caused by guns, drugs, poison, fires and suicide. Still, it's not what you do, but how you do it. And this memorable poster campaign by Indian agency 1-Point Design is certainly a breath of fresh air (ha!) that puts a different spin on familiar anti-smoking themes. Or does it? Well, it turns out there's a different sort of smoking gun, as the work resembles a campaign by the Cancer Society of Finland. Sure, it's the same basic concept, but for a good cause, and this kind of overlap is inevitable in a creative business. There's no such thing as a new idea—no ifs, ands or butts about it!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Previously on AdFreak:
A record 15,000 butts used to fight smoking

Filed under Anti-smoking, Asia, Gianatasio
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Smoking is gay, says new anti-smoking PSA

In what's being billed as the first anti-smoking campaign in history to have any effect whatsoever on teens, this PSA tells them simply that smoking is gay. Yes, it's a parody from The Onion, but it might actually do the trick, seeing as how entrenched the insult "That's so gay" remains in the teen vernacular—so much so that there's a whole non-bogus PSA campaign out there designed to get teens not to use the phrase.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Previously on AdFreak:
Ads straighten out teens who say 'so gay'
South Carolina clarifies: We're not so gay

Filed under Anti-smoking, Nudd, Parody
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Anti-smoking ad leaves you bruised, bloody

It's been too long since we've enjoyed a nice British PSA with needlessly excessive violence. So, here's one. It's an anti-smoking spot from the Birmingham division of the U.K.'s National Health Service, and it compares the physical effects of smoking to that of getting beat up in a back alley. "Smoke, and your body takes a beating," says the ultra-grim voiceover. "Fight back. Quit now." Posters from the campaign disagree with the TV work, suggesting that "when you smoke, it's your insides that get beaten up." Directing duo Rankin & Chris shot the ad, which the agency, Dr. Foster, admits is "quite shocking, but then so is the damage smoking causes."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

See also:
Headless turkey stars in anti-smoking ads
New York's anti-smoking amputee still smokes

Filed under Anti-smoking, Europe, Nudd, PSAs
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Legacy's mock interviews getting a little old

American Legacy's mock job interviews helped revive its "Truth" campaign. But after viewing these latest iterations, I think the approach has run its course. The drill's become too familiar, with the smarmy interviewer's Big Tobacco pitch predictably rebuffed by horrified job seekers. In "Customers," above, he whisks plastic figures into a wastebasket to illustrate that "one-half of the lifelong users of your product will die from it." I hoped the guy would set the toys on fire, but no such luck. Plus, the job candidates are such goody-goodys. Even recent guest "star" gold-digger Megan, until recently from VH1, took the moral high road, an unnatural performance to say the least. Surely one interviewee, even jokingly, said something like: "No problem! I'll kill 'em all!" Next time, let the interviewer riff off that: "You're perfect for Big Tobacco. Welcome aboard!" How about doing an ad with a throat-hole guy? Nobody's ever done that before, right?
 
—Posted by David Gianatasio

See also:
Big Tobacco now hiring in new 'Truth' spots
Big Tobacco still seeking best and brightest
Even VH1's Megan turns down Big Tobacco

Filed under Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, Truth
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Even VH1's Megan turns down Big Tobacco

Pointless celebrity guest appearances: Aren't they a sign that something has jumped the shark? Megan Hauserman, star of VH1's Megan Wants a Millionaire, isn't much of a celeb, so maybe American Legacy's "Headhunter" series of anti-smoking spots can rebound from her stultifying performance in this new commercial. Unlike her cleavage, the spot falls flat. Even the Chihuahua looks bored. The concept might have worked if they'd played against the expectations set up in previous ads and had Megan leap at the chance to make millions as a tobacco spokesmodel. Then she wouldn't actually have to pick one of the guys on her show.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

See also:
Big Tobacco now hiring in new 'Truth' spots
Big Tobacco still seeking best and brightest

Filed under Anti-smoking, Celebrity endorsements, Gianatasio, Truth
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Throat-Hole Guy didn't even have it this bad

Here's an amusing parody of the Throat-Hole Guy school of anti-smoking shockvertising. The man here lost his voicebox to cancer, and things went seriously downhill from there. The PSA ends with a stern warning: "Smoking contributes to and empowers the imminent robot death squad apocalypse." The surgeon general would surely agree. Via Make the Logo Bigger.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Anti-smoking, Nudd, Parody, PSAs
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Big Tobacco still seeking best and brightest

American Legacy's "Truth" anti-tobacco juggernaut rolls on with new executions from Arnold that expand on the campaign's amusing faux-job-interview format. Above, we get a customer-service role-playing session, with the superbly smug "recruiter" playing a smokeless-tobacco user who complains about losing half of his jaw. It's too bad the job seeker doesn't ask him how he can speak so clearly sans half his face—you gotta be quick with the comebacks to work for Ol' Smoky! The spot below takes place in a college lecture hall during a career seminar. The students all put down their hands when the recruiter asks if they'd consider working in an industry that could cause 1 billion deaths this century. Clearly, none of them are going for MBAs, and they'd never make the grade in law school.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Anti-smoking, Anti-tobacco, Arnold, Gianatasio, Truth
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Will self-hating smokers help others to quit?

To explain its latest salvo for the Washington State Department of Health, WongDoody asks: "Amid mounting home foreclosures, worsening unemployment and an ugly healthcare crisis, how do you convince the working poor to give up what is often their only stress-relief tool -- cigarettes? Simple. You can't. They need to convince themselves." Though well intentioned, these 60-second documentary-style "Dear Me" spots, with low-income smokers reading letters to themselves, have a few things going against them. First, they're a bit manipulative, with overly bleak shots like the collection of kids' toys around a filthy ashtray. But they also leave you wondering, if these people are so self-aware that they would shred themselves in TV anti-smoking ads, what hope is there is for every other smoker out there? Besides, the folks in the spots appear so miserable, it would almost be adding insult to injury to deny them a cigarette.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, WongDoody
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Big Tobacco now hiring in new 'Truth' spots

I've disliked most recent Amercian Legacy "Truth" efforts, as they've gotten more toxic than actual cigarettes. Arnold's latest spots, however, are pleasing by virtue of their simplicity. The tiresome singing and dancing, electronic voice synthesizers, megaphone tirades against Big Tobacco and gross-out throat-hole close-ups from past "Truth" campaigns are gone. Instead, we get real-life job seekers quizzed in mock interviews by an exceedingly well-cast actor playing an executive recruiter. He looks a bit like Mark Wahlberg, but comes off smarmier and more pompous (which I didn't think was possible, but this guy's good). The theme is, "Do you have what it takes to be a tobacco exec?" The humor's silly, but on point and unforced. The guy informs one applicant: "One job I may have an opening in might require you to plead the Fifth a lot." The job seeker looks concerned, but she should just relax. They told me the same thing at my AdFreak interview, and I haven't done any jail time. Yet.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Anti-smoking, Arnold, Gianatasio, Truth
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