It’s impossible to avoid the truth when it comes to health and smoking. So the question becomes, if everyone knows about the horrific health outcomes, the financial burden, and the negative stigma associated with smoking, then how is it possible that the pipeline is always filled with ‘soon-to-be’ or ‘newly addicted smokers’ in waiting? The answer is the previously untargeted “social smoker”.

They were completely tuned out to traditional anti-smoking messages – blackened lungs, decaying teeth, and tracheotomies – because they simply didn’t think they smoked. “I’m not a smoker. I’m a social smoker.”

So using humour to disarm them would make them more open to our messaging. The campaign challenged their use of the word “Social” to justify their behavior by comparing it to other ridiculous behaviors like Social Farting. In this way, we played back their own ridiculous excuses in a way they weren’t expecting. Leveraging the use of social analogies also allowed us to finally create social consequences for our seemingly bullet proof target and dramatized the absurdity of their delusion - that “social smoking” was somehow different than smoking. Each creative element showed the ridiculousness of “social smoking” and asked them to “Quit the Denial”.