I like the current campaign of anti-smoking posters. They feature a endless stream of hip, young(ish) musicians and other celebrities each with their own message of why smoking sucks. They're pretty much restatements of all the various arguements, but they tend to focus on cultural and values-based things rather than health problems and, crucially, they sound like the people themselves said the words and believe the message.
The thing I like best about them is the way they create a moment where not smoking seems like a good idea. Generally, smoking is something which you notice happening, but don't notice not happening. So a music video or film where the hero(ine) smokes creates a positive association with smoking, but all the footage of hero(ine)s not smoking don't have any impact on perceptions of smoking because they aren't tagged to smoking in the mind of the viewer. The viewer might think wearing a leather jacket, shooting guns while flying through the air or having superpowers will make them cool, but the absence of smoking doesn't make not smoking any cooler.
So hooray for a programme which ups the anti on smoking. More power to it.
Posted by carla at July 3, 2008 10:23 PM