Despite the fact that half of all smokers end up deceased because of the habit – resulting in approximately 6 million deaths each year, nearly 1 billion people worldwide continue to smoke.
Ironically, 80% of those who engage in the expensive habit live in low-and-middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest. This poses a great challenge for health officials to educate populations on the dangers of smoking. As a result, the World Health Organization refers to the tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced.
Clearly, telling people that smoking will kill you isn’t the solution, which is why the agency Ogilvy Thailand created an ingenious campaign to prompt adults to think about the habit for themselves.
The ad above – which is being called the most ‘effective anti-smoking ad ever’ – uses kids to trick smokers into declaring how bad the habit really is.
Several children approach adults smoking in public and ask them for a light. Having no idea it’s a setup, each adult starts explaining to the child why they shouldn’t smoke.
“If you smoke you die faster,” one man tells a little boy. “Don’t you want to live and play?”
“When you smoke you suffer from lung cancer, emphysema and strokes,” another says.
The kicker is that right after the adult lectures the kid on the dangers of smoking, they are handed a brochure with a phone number to call for information about quitting. It reads: “You worry about me. But why not about yourself?”
Is this the most effective anti-smoking ad ever? We’ll let you decide. Please comment below and share this news!
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