“Easy ways to quit Smoking?” Sorry Alan Carr but there isn’t any.

This industry has seen many shock tactics over the years in an effort to encourage people to give up smoking. But research has shown that these traditional ways of getting people to quit are getting less effective over time.

Despite the fact that there are still 6.4 million smokers in the UK, the Nicotinell brand was struggling to recruit new users.

Yet, of the 11.7% of Londoners that smoke, 45% of them aspire to quit.

During the month of October, in the UK the NHS run a campaign called “Stopoctober” encouraging smokers to quit.

We wanted to leverage the increased interest in quitting over this month but Nicotinell needed to find a new angle that would enable them to appeal to smokers in a fresh and thought provoking way.

Moss was chosen as the living plant life for this campaign after extensive research and fact checking that proved its natural ability to absorb and metabolise fine dust, converting particles into natural and harmless biomass.

A recent study by Michigan University also found that mosses sequester around 6.43 billion metric tons more carbon when in soil. For this reason, the billboards were designed and produced with innovative beds that allowed the moss to remain planted and live through the campaign.

The moss was carefully removed and returned to the supplier for re-use after the campaign.

A sustainability consultant was used throughout the production process to ensure the validity of claims.

The Shepherds Bush roundabout and New Cross Gate sites were identified and selected as they were in areas with the highest pollution levels in the country overlaid with OTS and footfall data for highest impact.

We created a live, growing, moss covered billboard giving a visual representation of the swift improvement in oxygen levels and respiratory well being by people who have given up smoking.

The visually eye catching Lung shaped typography was hard to miss when placed on a 96 sheet in a high traffic area in London.

Remarkably, the positive changes in lung capacity can take place over a shorter time period than it took the moss to grow on the lungs, a fact we highlighted in the copy.

We partnered with Ladbible to give coverage of the billboard to our younger demographics and drive talkability in socials.

- reached 1 million Londoners via the billboard

- reached 1 million via social media amplification

But most importantly, we started a conversation about how good people felt once they had quit smoking “I quit smoking almost 5 days ago and my lungs feel great”