Smoking has always been considered cool. Why? Because it is dangerous and combined with the right people (actors, musicians, models, influencers) you get a look that screams cool. And cigarette companies have been “lucky” in the sense that they got a lot of free branding from the right people.

The problem is that young people look up to these celebrities and influencers - and imitate them.

So we decided to replace cigarettes with lollipops. Create buzz about lollipops by placing them in the mouths of celebrities and not telling anyone why. If we could make lollipops something to talk about then we could illustrate why a lot of people start smoking.

Because; Hey, if you can look just as cool with a lollipop in your mouth as you can with a cigarette, then it is not the cigarette that makes the difference – it is who you are.

Hence, you can be "cool without smoking".

It started with the production of handmade lollipops made from natural ingredients and no added sugar.

Then we placed/seeded the lollipops at music festivals, in fashion magazines, in a music video etc.

After this we sent direct mails to 100 celebrities and influencers. The DM explained the idea, had a personalized handwritten message for each recipient and 50 lollipops in 3 different flavours. They now started posting pictures on their social channels using only #slikkepind (#lollipop) and we reached the critical social reach numbers where the press started covering the story - asking why lollipops were a trend?!

Now The Danish Cancer Society started doing PR about the campaign and we launched a nationwide integrated campaign featuring 13 ambassadors looking cool with a lollipop. Celebrity social posts kept the buzz going.

Finally, a tactical element was added in step 2 with a "download app" CTA to help the smokers quit.

(Population in Denmark: 5.6 million)

Impressions:

Social media (UNPAID): +110 million

PR: +17 million

Media: +25 million

That is an average of 27 impressions per Dane

KPI results:

- Reflecting whether smoking is cool: 22% (target: 10%)

- Found the message relevant: 79% (target: 50%)

- Ad liking: 64% (target: 50%)

App downloads: +10,000 by end of 2015 (target: 7,500 by end of 2016)

Active app users (i.e. users who are following a quit smoking track): Approx. 50% (no target).

Press stories: +150

We sent a direct mail (lollipops and personalized notes) to 100 ambassadors and got a positive response rate (= persons posting pictures of themselves with lollipops) of 49.

Since we do not handle any of the celebrities’ or influencers’ social channels, all we know is that of the ones participating there was a combined reach on both Instagram and Facebook of approx. 2 mill. for each channel.