wake up // anti-vaping campaign

You know how sometimes, you make some ads, and then they’re out in the world quietly going about their business in a totally uncontroversial way? This wasn’t one of those times. For 25 years, the California Tobacco Control Program, part of the Department of Health, has run the state’s anti-smoking campaign. But in 2014, they chose us for a new assignment: educate people about the dangers of e-cigarettes. Our campaign was called Wake Up, and used the humble asterisk to communicate all that we weren’t being told about vaping by the e-cig industry. We concentrated our messaging around health implications, youth uptake, and the connection with big tobacco. The campaign ran in TV and digital, with innovative and interactive OOH as well. And we made a whole website, stillblowingsmoke.org. From a research and substantiation process, to content strategy and finally writing the whole darn thing, it was a truly herculean effort. The results: a massive increase in awareness, and a whole lotta outrage from the opposition, including a parody website, vandalism of our out-of-home pieces, and 20,000+ mentions of our campaign on social channels. Oh, and Fox news got mad at us. Mission accomplished.

WINNER: SILVER EFFIE, SF BIG CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR, PIXEL AWARD, BEST IN SHOW AT THE AD AGE HEALTHCARE MARKETING IMPACT AWARDS

Film

A combination of archival footage including the 1994 tobacco industry congressional hearings, stop motion animation, live action, expressive type motion graphics, and iconic vintage songs all create the uneasy realization that history is repeating itself.

Please enjoy this backhanded compliment we received, courtesy of the fine folks over on the e-cig subreddit:

Print/Out-of-Home/Digital

StillBlowingSmoke.Org

I handled content strategy, copywriting, and, with my account bro Davis Wolfe, research/substantiation for this whole darn website. (Substantiation: making sure everything we say can be backed up by respectable scientific evidence. I read a lot of articles in medical journals.)

Teen Vape Documentary Film

It's hard to comprehend just how popular vaping is among high school students—not as a way to quit smoking, but just for its own sake. For this short film we found four California teens and interviewed them about vaping. The result is a haunting and illuminating documentary that says so much more than any headline ever could.

Wake Up 2.0 and Beyond

A few executions from over the years as the campaign evolved:

Film

Building on the first round of TV spots, we continued using iconic vintage songs to get the message across — in this case, that whether it’s on vapes or cigarettes, the tobacco industry is gonna getcha hooked.

Credits

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