Reduce drug-impaired driving fatalities in France, targeting young adults influenced by cannabis culture, who are the biggest consumers in Europe.

The challenge was to combat the normalization of cannabis and its perceived harmlessness, despite its involvement in 21% of road fatalities.

Victimes & Citoyens created a powerful campaign by using cannabis' most recognizable property: its smell. We created a double page print, and put the reader in the position of someone about to trigger a deadly accident with an enigmatic message “rub to discover the smell of death”.

Once rubbed, the print liberated a strong scent of cannabis.

“The Smell of Death'' directly links cannabis to death in car crashes.

Cannabis is no longer considered a drug in France, people even think it’s cool to smoke and drive. We wanted to remind everyone that cannabis is involved in 1 out of 5 car crashes in France, and that it can even lead to death

For this campaign, we had to develop a unique technology with microcapsules in the ink, that liberate a scent of cannabis when rubbed.

Then we chose the most adapted magazine for our core target. The choice of So Foot, the main title dealing with soccer, answers to that particular demographic of young adults, mostly men.

The campaign got a huge impact thanks to its singularity.

The campaign opened the debate in the media, the journalist explained again the danger of cannabis. It generated 4.1 millions of media impressions and 12.4 millions euros of earned media.