Smoking is bad, mmmmm’kay. HC2 has featured a few anti-smoking advertisements in the past, from the comparison of cancer sticks to the twin towers, to Saatchi & Saatchi’s horrific creation that reminded us of the fresco ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. These ads drive home the mindset that Canadian society will longer allow doctors prescribe cigarettes to pregnant women, or accept workplaces that permit smoking indoors. I specify the great white north, as there are still other countries out there where smoking is still permitted on restaurant patios, and in university classrooms. We can only hope that the rest of the world will catch up, but that being said, Canada still has a way to go before smoking is really quashed.
Moving onto a new weapon in the quest to rid the world of cigarettes, re-enter Saatchi & Saatchi who’ve developed a medium called adbins. This creation displays their anti-smoking advertisement in the form of a chest x-ray, which prominently features transparent lungs. Strategically placed in smoking sections, smokers are invited to ash their butts into the adbin, which eventually fills up the chest cavity. The end result is an x-ray depicting a set of lungs that are clogged with cigarette ash and discarded ends, which isn’t too far off the mark. A brilliant way to get people’s attention, and remind some of us, why we quit. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone puts something funny inside one of these bins, such as creating an ad-hoc aquarium with water and goldfish. Porcelain skull not included.
