Jump to full article: New York Times, 2009-06-22
Author: STUART ELLIOTT
Intro: Although the amount of money devoted to antismoking campaigns is a fleck in an ashtray compared with the billions spent by Big Tobacco, the ads that try to unsell cigarettes strive to be every bit as creative as those on the other side -- or perhaps more so, given how much more difficult it is to break a habit than form one, particularly when a product contains addictive ingredients.
For instance, the American Legacy Foundation, whose ads seek to disclose the “Truth” about smoking to teenagers and young adults, is bringing out a campaign that carries the theme “Do you have what it takes to be a tobacco executive?”
. . .
the New York City Department of Health has garnered attention for an aggressive campaign to fight smoking. And the New York State Department of Health is running ads that urge consumers to ask supermarkets to end their sales of tobacco products.
Another local campaign of note is coming from Santa Monica, Calif., which has long been in the vanguard in the battle against cigarettes. The campaign, which carries the theme “Smoking doesn’t belong here,” adapts the children’s game of “One of these things is not like the others” to remind residents and visitors to obey the city’s far-reaching no-smoking laws.
. . .
A brainstorming session yielded the idea to borrow from “Sesame Street” the learning game of “one of these is out of place” as the basis of the campaign, Mr. Burke says.
“In talking about the visuals, the patterns of shapes,” he adds, “we came up with matching them up with the iconic Santa Monica references.”
Jump to full article » |