Thank you for smoking

A campaign to launch a grassroots movement against the tobacco industry.

Challenge

The tobacco industry is a toxic sector responsible for numerous deaths. It’s time to stand up against this industry. However, how do you launch a movement and mobilise a community when not everyone is aware of the industry’s practices?

Community insights

We know that people stand up against injustice, and a sense of injustice can unite and mobilise them. Therefore, we knew that for this case, our job to be done was simple: we just needed to make people aware of the absurd perspective of the tobacco industry.

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Campaign Idea

We initiated the campaign with a ‘Thank You for Smoking’ campaign, featuring the tobacco industry as the sender. The campaign comprised a corporate video launched across various channels, including TikTok, YouTube, and NPO. Additionally, we implemented an out-of-home campaign targeting key locations like supermarkets and publishers, which support the tobacco industry by selling and/or promoting its products.

After a few days, we claimed the campaign through PR, social channels, and influencers. We clarified that the campaign was intentionally deceptive, aiming to raise awareness about the practices of the tobacco industry.

Launch Doei Tabak

After claiming the campaign, we also launched the grassroots community ‘Doei Tabak,’ providing a platform for individuals opposed to the tobacco industry, showcasing anti-tobacco initiatives, and facilitating the launch of future campaigns.

Throughout the entire campaign timeline, we generated significant buzz on X and Reddit. The campaign garnered attention in various talk shows, and NOS op 3 even featured a segment on it.

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Werken bij de tabaksindustrie

A honest recruitment campaign for the tobacco industry

Challenge

The tobacco industry manipulates, deceives, and profits through hidden, unethical tactics. How can we expose this in a fresh and impactful way that sparks a strong emotional response, driving powerful motivation for action and deeper community engagement?

Community insights

Most people want to work for a company they can be proud of—or at the very least, one they can talk about without shame. When a company has questionable practices, it works hard to convince potential employees otherwise.

The tobacco industry, for instance, uses misleading ads to claim they are working toward a ‘smoke-free future.’ They present themselves as progressive, but the reality is starkly different. This harmful industry deliberately hooks more children on nicotine and causes 20,000 deaths annually in the Netherlands. We aim to expose this contradiction by revealing their deceptive recruitment tactics and launching our own ‘honest’ campaign.

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Campaign Idea

With the recruitment campaign ‘Werken bij de Tabaksindustrie’, De Rookvrije Generatie unveils the truth: the tobacco industry is seeking new hires who know precisely how to lure young people into an addiction to a deadly product. They look for individuals willing to deceive and cross ethical boundaries. The content exposes the absurdity of the tobacco industry’s recruitment practices, highlighting its fundamentally immoral nature, where deceit and profit are the only driving forces. The campaign was launched through online video, cinema, DOOH and creators. 

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Cultuurmakers

Changing the narrative about smoking

Challenge

In the recent year, we’ve all learned about the harmful effects of tobacco, leading to many public spaces becoming increasingly ‘smoke-free.’ However, this hasn’t altered the perception of smoking. The portrayal of a ‘bad girl’ or ‘cool guy’ in movies or series is still frequently associated with the use of cigarettes or, more recently, vapes. How can we change this for narrative?

Community insights

Culture is created and curated by community frontrunners. These are artists, actors, influencers and creators. They have the ability to change the narrative within their own communities and debunk stereotypes. So why not collaborate with these community frontrunners, to change the image of cigarettes and vapes in culture?

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Campaign idea

For the campaign, we teamed up with community frontrunners from three different categories: music, fashion and film & series. Together with these frontrunners, we created content in which they shared their perspective on smoking in culture, elaborating on why they decided not to use any references to tobacco in their projects.

The content was distributed on social media, (D)OOH, in theaters, and on television. To substantiate our message, we delved deeper by creating three mini-documentaries, which were shared on YouTube and Instagram.

This campaign was developed together with Boris Creative.

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