Gatecrasher Advertising > Work > Smarter than Smoking

The Overview

Smarter than Smoking’s focus is to deter smoking uptake among 10 to 15 year olds. Campaigns have tradionally concentrated on reinforcing the negative short term health, cosmetic, social and finacial consequences of smoking. The most recent campaign brief however called for the agency to explore ways to introduce negative long term consequences into the messaging. The challenge being to make these ‘future issues’ salient to a young audience.

The Work

The campaign theme developed by the agency, ‘The future is in your Hands’ was a very pointed reminder of the connection between first touching a cigarette and where that act might lead. In the television commercial designed to launch this platform, we follow the path of one person and see the impact smoking has at different stages in his life, ultimately ending with deep regret. The creative/strategic strength of this idea was that it allowed the audience to empathise with the older victim, by virtue of being able to first empathise with the child at the beginning of the ad. The campaign comprised of television, online and ads in sporting programs.