Every year, 1500 people in Israel die of passive smoking. CLEAN AIR, an organisation that fights smoking in public places asked us to create awareness about the dangers of passive smoking, among non-smokers.

Our key insight was that interestingly the majority of smokers aren’t conscious of the dangers that passive smoking represents. In light of this, we decided to literally show smokers how their habit affects others.The idea was to produce a “dirtying postcard”: a regular looking promotional postcard smeared with a substance resembling charcoal, which leaves "annoying" dusty black marks on the hands picking it up. The pick up postcard, which was distributed in restaurants, cafes and bars, is a direct and live demonstration of the effect that smokers are having on the lungs of those "passive smokers" around them.

The live demonstration managed to literally leave its mark on the smokers, demonstrating the message in a physical, non-verbal way. The postcard had an immediate impact, sparking off conversations in the places where it was distributed. Some people were agitated by it while others were struck by its originality. Many praised the accuracy of the statement it made – getting "dirty" because of someone else's bad habit is indeed infuriating. None, however, were left indifferent to it. For an extremely low budget campaign, ROI was huge, especially in terms of raising awareness of the "passive smoking" issue.