The efforts to introduce standardised packaging of tobacco products in the UK have been a battle against the vested interests of the tobacco companies.

We used communication to amplify ongoing lobbying, rallying both smokers and non-smokers behind the proposal, with our insight that the one thing everyone could agree on was that they didn’t want any child to start smoking.

We created a short film to establish how attractive cigarette pack design was to children, convincing audiences that removing marketing features on packs could help reduce the attractiveness of smoking.

Our case was nearly won, but we were delayed, as the government decided to postpone legislation. There was heavy lobbying from the tobacco companies at this point.

So we intensified our efforts, with a new film that pointed out that tobacco companies do all that local laws allow to make smoking attractive.

This final push succeeded, with the House of Commons and subsequently the House of Lords passing legislation to standardise all cigarette and tobacco packaging. From May 2016 every cigarette and loose leaf tobacco product packet will be uniform in size, shape and design featuring only the brand name and graphic and text health warnings. We believe that this legislation would have passed eventually without our communication efforts. The effect of our communication was to help make it happen sooner.

Our calculations show the potential benefit to society to be as much as £7.6bn, on a total budget of just £115,145.