New Media Campaign in the UK about the Smoking Ban

In the UK, the Department of Health is launching a new media campaign to prepare the public to the smoking ban. Below are more details from the Observer. 
WATCH (from Boardsmagazine site as I was unable to capture it -yet- for GLK)

Dramatic adverts created by one of Hollywood leading figures are to be screened in Britain over the next month as part of a new 'terror tactic' campaign to prepare England for a ban on smoking in public places.

The ads were filmed using a new camera technique by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, who worked on the 9/11 film United 93 as well as this year's Palme D'Or winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

They are part of a £10m campaign to make people think about the dangers of inhaling cigarette smoke, well before the ban on smoking in public places comes into force in England on 1 July.

Using ordinary people taken from the street, the commercials show cigarette smoke winding its way between people as they sit in the pub or walk around a cafe. Ackroyd has used an 'alien revolution' system which can turn the camera through 360 degrees while still keeping the same horizon in view, giving viewers the strange sensation that they are part of the smoke itself watching it swirl around the customers.

The first adverts are due to go out in Wales later this month, as Wales will bring in its smoking ban from April, at the same time as Northern Ireland. Scotland became smoke-free earlier this year.

The new adverts are due to be screened in England before Christmas - making people more aware of the dangers in the run up to the new laws coming into force next summer.

The adverts, created by the agency Golley Slater, aim to educate people who regularly go to a pub or a club that they are putting their health at risk. The script highlights the potential cocktail of 4,000 chemicals which enters people's bodies from second-hand smoke around them.

'The TV commercials feature second-hand smoke personified as a malignant, unseen predator which stalks customers at a pub and cafe location' said Phil Hickes, creative director at the agency.

The second-hand smoking campaign, which will be broadcast on all the major commercial TV channels between now and the ban.

'The cast for the two 30 second TV commercials is drawn from real-life with people who were "recruited" off the streets and from pubs and cafes', said Hickes.

The campaign will be accompanied by radio public awareness drives and a series of beer mats and posters to be displayed in the toilets of bars and clubs. The 'Fancy a cocktail? Don't cover up the facts' and 'Second-hand smoke can seriously damage your delicate bits' messages have been designed to bring home the dangers of second-hand smoke in a hard-hitting fashion and persuade people that the ban should be followed and not flouted.

It centres on research which shows that regular exposure to second-hand smoke can increase a non-smoker's chance of contracting lung cancer by 24 per cent and heart disease by 2 per cent.

One insider said: 'The government is now going for more gritty, shocking commercials, such as the current one aimed at educating motorcyclists to look for drivers. There's a sense that a lot of people don't know much about the smoking ban, and they need to understand why it's coming into force.'

The commercials present second hand smoke as an enemy silently invading the lungs of innocent people.

In the first advert, shot in a cafe, the script says: 'It is there, when you are drinking, eating, relaxing. But you won't notice it, floating, clinging, killing. Second-hand smoke kills.' The scary tone is carried on into the second advert, which is shot in a pub. 'Anywhere there is laughter, music, crowds, you will find it, hanging, drifting, harming,' the narrator intones.

The adverts will also carry the number of a helpline which the public can ring to get advice about giving up smoking.

Campaigners have welcomed the news. Deborah Arnott, director of Action on Smoking and Health said: 'This is just the sort of advertising campaign that's needed to make sure people get the message that second-hand smoke is a complex killer.

'The reason ventilation can't protect you from second-hand smoke that it can only remove the largest, most visible particles from the air, but many of the thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke are tiny particles, odourless and invisible, but deadly all the same. That's why the legislation to ban smoking from all workplaces is vital.'

From:

Smoking ban gets the Hollywood treatment - The Observer
The government is worried that next year's smoking ban could face a public backlash. Now it is turning to 'terror tactics' in a new advertising campaign to change our minds

Sunday November 12, 2006

Jo Revill, health editor
The Observer

   

 

The ads were filmed using a new camera technique by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, who worked on the 9/11 film United 93 as well as this year's Palme D'Or winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

They are part of a £10m campaign to make people think about the dangers of inhaling cigarette smoke, well before the ban on smoking in public places comes into force in England on 1 July.

Using ordinary people taken from the street, the commercials show cigarette smoke winding its way between people as they sit in the pub or walk around a cafe. Ackroyd has used an 'alien revolution' system which can turn the camera through 360 degrees while still keeping the same horizon in view, giving viewers the strange sensation that they are part of the smoke itself watching it swirl around the customers.

The first adverts are due to go out in Wales later this month, as Wales will bring in its smoking ban from April, at the same time as Northern Ireland. Scotland became smoke-free earlier this year.

The new adverts are due to be screened in England before Christmas - making people more aware of the dangers in the run up to the new laws coming into force next summer.

The adverts, created by the agency Golley Slater, aim to educate people who regularly go to a pub or a club that they are putting their health at risk. The script highlights the potential cocktail of 4,000 chemicals which enters people's bodies from second-hand smoke around them.

'The TV commercials feature second-hand smoke personified as a malignant, unseen predator which stalks customers at a pub and cafe location' said Phil Hickes, creative director at the agency.

The second-hand smoking campaign, which will be broadcast on all the major commercial TV channels between now and the ban.

'The cast for the two 30 second TV commercials is drawn from real-life with people who were "recruited" off the streets and from pubs and cafes', said Hickes.

The campaign will be accompanied by radio public awareness drives and a series of beer mats and posters to be displayed in the toilets of bars and clubs. The 'Fancy a cocktail? Don't cover up the facts' and 'Second-hand smoke can seriously damage your delicate bits' messages have been designed to bring home the dangers of second-hand smoke in a hard-hitting fashion and persuade people that the ban should be followed and not flouted.

It centres on research which shows that regular exposure to second-hand smoke can increase a non-smoker's chance of contracting lung cancer by 24 per cent and heart disease by 2 per cent.

One insider said: 'The government is now going for more gritty, shocking commercials, such as the current one aimed at educating motorcyclists to look for drivers. There's a sense that a lot of people don't know much about the smoking ban, and they need to understand why it's coming into force.'

The commercials present second hand smoke as an enemy silently invading the lungs of innocent people.

In the first advert, shot in a cafe, the script says: 'It is there, when you are drinking, eating, relaxing. But you won't notice it, floating, clinging, killing. Second-hand smoke kills.' The scary tone is carried on into the second advert, which is shot in a pub. 'Anywhere there is laughter, music, crowds, you will find it, hanging, drifting, harming,' the narrator intones.

The adverts will also carry the number of a helpline which the public can ring to get advice about giving up smoking.

Campaigners have welcomed the news. Deborah Arnott, director of Action on Smoking and Health said: 'This is just the sort of advertising campaign that's needed to make sure people get the message that second-hand smoke is a complex killer.

'The reason ventilation can't protect you from second-hand smoke that it can only remove the largest, most visible particles from the air, but many of the thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke are tiny particles, odourless and invisible, but deadly all the same. That's why the legislation to ban smoking from all workplaces is vital.'

From:

Smoking ban gets the Hollywood treatment - The Observer
The government is worried that next year's smoking ban could face a public backlash. Now it is turning to 'terror tactics' in a new advertising campaign to change our minds

Sunday November 12, 2006

Jo Revill, health editor
The Observer