16000: No News—Or Newport—Here.

It’s a safe bet that this anti-smoking propaganda was financed by hush money from lawsuits, legal actions and exposés showing Blacks are targeted by Big Tobacco with extra-potent menthol cigarettes. Don’t buy it.

15017: Butting In On Protecting Wildlife.

FCB in France is announcing that cigarette butts are more deadly to wildlife than plastic straws and plastic bags. Expect a butt-load of contrived campaigns ahead.

13641: Please Quit, BBDO.

This anti-smoking commercial is from Ireland via BBDO, declaring there are now more quitters than smokers in the country. However, there are clearly not more racial and ethnic minorities, as the only Black Irishman—not to be confused with Black Irish—appears in the background of a single scene (squint to spot him in the third frame presented here). Of course, that didn’t stop BBDO from hijacking Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” Not sure why they felt the need to caption the lyrics. Perhaps the White advertising agency feared Irish people wouldn’t understand Gaynor’s words…?

12490: Truth Hurts.

The truth is, this Truth video sucks—and it shows how hackneyed White advertising agencies like 72andSunny love hip hop.

There’s an old advertising line sometimes attributed to David Ogilvy that reads, “If you’ve got nothing to say, sing it.” A variation on the line reads, “If you’ve got nothing to say, sing it. If you’ve got less than nothing to say, have a kid sing it.” Contrived crap like the Truth video inspires another twist: “If you’ve got nothing to say, sing it. If you’ve got no talent and you’re culturally clueless, have a hip hop artist sing it.”

12489: Deadly Bad Idea.

This Utah Department of Health anti-smoking campaign from R&R Partners, USA is such a smokescreen—and a hackneyed pile of shit to boot. Anyone with any experience in the matter—including Big Tobacco—knows that the specter of death is not a deterrent to smokers. Big Tobacco often must fund anti-smoking efforts as part of lawsuit settlements, and such settlements usually allow Big Tobacco to ultimately approve the messages. Hence, Big Tobacco is more than happy to green-light propaganda proven to be impotent. It would have been more effective—and breakthrough—to show the Grim Reaper at a computer designing anti-smoking campaigns like the lousy one depicted here.

10396: CDC Goes For The Throat And More.

From USA TODAY…

CDC says graphic anti-smoking ads work, more on way

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

The federal government says its graphic ad campaign showing diseased smokers has been such a success that it is planning another round next year to nudge more Americans to kick the habit.

The ads, which ran for 12 weeks in spring and early summer, aimed to get 500,000 people to try to quit and 50,000 to kick the habit long-term.

“The initial results suggest the impact will be even greater than that,” says Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which spearheaded the $54 million campaign. The ads showed real Americans talking about how smoking caused their paralysis, lung removal and amputations.

He says it’s the first time the U.S. government has paid for anti-smoking ads, although some media ran them free.

The CDC doesn’t have a tally yet on how many people actually tried to quit, but it says the ads generated 192,000 extra calls — more than double the usual volume — to its national toll-free quit line, 800-QUIT-NOW, and 417,000 new visitors to smokefree.gov, its website offering cessation tips. That’s triple the site’s previous traffic.

“We do plan to do another (campaign) next year,” Frieden says, adding that he has no details yet on the ads or their timing. He says the amount the CDC spent this year is a pittance compared with the $10 billion the tobacco industry spends annually to market its products.

The nation’s two largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, declined to comment on the ads. Both reported solid second-quarter 2012 earnings.

Frieden says the print, broadcast and online ads struck a chord. “What we heard from people is they wished they’d seen them years ago.”

Christi Leigh Sims, 42, says she was shocked into action by the ad showing a woman whose throat cancer caused her to lose her teeth, hair and larynx, and resulted in a hole in her throat. So in late March, Sims quit — cold turkey — after about 20 years of smoking.

“I wanted to change my life now before it was too late,” says Sims, a mother of two from Arlington, Texas. “I didn’t want to look or live like that.” The ad shows a woman getting dressed with a wig and false teeth.

“We made the danger accessible and realistic,” says Eric Asche, who works for the anti-smoking group Legacy and who consulted with the CDC on the ads. “When you personalize a story, it’s powerful.”

Too powerful for some. The ads “are shocking, disgusting and too provocative — and they’ve crossed the line,” wrote stay-at-home dad Joel Mathis in a Scripps Howard News Service column. “The non-smoking majority is being subjected to an assault on our senses.”

Glenn Leshner, a University of Missouri researcher who has studied the effectiveness of anti-smoking ads in a lab setting, says they draw more attention when they feature either a health threat or disgusting images. Yet when they have both, he’s found viewers start to withdraw.

Frieden, a physician who has treated many smokers, defends the ads.

“It’s important that everyone understands the impact of smoking,” he says.

He adds that most people don’t realize that smoking causes more than lung cancer and heart disease.

Health care costs are $2,000 more each year for smokers — about 20% of U.S. adults — than for non-smokers, Frieden says, and smoking remains the leading cause of preventable deaths.

“This campaign pulled back the curtain,” he says.