Smoking black humour works. Even for serious social awareness.

Circa 2004-2005: “Tombstone”: The Anti Smoking Society of Bahrain.

Challenge:

Loads of smoking ads in Bahrain back in 2007, emphasized the grim realities of smoking.

The last thing we needed were more visual ads dramatising the ‘ugh-liness factor’ of those pair of damaged lungs or preachy communication laced with overt scientific, medical jargon that documented the after-effects of smoking. They just didn't cut it, at least for die-hard smokers who would obviously turn away.

Need of the hour, back in 2007: Create an impactful single print ad and poster that could encapsulate the need to quit smoking without overt preachiness.

When an idea was literally 'born':

Back then in 2007, while scrambling for an idea on this project, I remember hearing the expression, “He is a born smoker”, while walking up and down the corridors of the Memac Ogilvy office on the 17th floor of the Al Moyyaed Towers in Seef Bahrain. It was aimed at one of the creative studio artists, who were one of the smoking chimneys in our team.

The copywriter in me saw a creative angle in the expression ‘born smoker’. It triggered a single story-like image in literal terms in a twisted sort of insight: people aren’t really born smokers from the womb. They just pick up on the habit and of course, it isn’t in their star sign. Duh.

This ‘star sign’ association then did a double take resulting in the ultimate irony: Even if you were born Leo, Virgo, Sagittarius or any of those 12 star signs…you can still die of the most dreaded star sign of our times: ‘Cancer’.

By visualising this on a tombstone as an epitaph drenched in copywriting bent on black humour, the ad sort of wrote itself. Resulting in heightened awareness for the Anti Smoking Society, Bahrain.

Recognition: Vinegar Award by The Drum, UK.