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Inspired By A Children’s Game, Santa Monica Fights Smoking

Not so long ago, pitches for online cigarettes were practically everywhere. It was difficult to miss -- or avoid -- radio and television commercials, print advertisements, billboards, signs in stores, direct mail and other blandishments for brands peddled by American Tobacco, Liggett & Myers, Lorillard, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.

Today, restrictions have significantly reduced that flood of ads, and a new federal law will limit them further. What are far more common nowadays are campaigns that discourage smoking cigarettes, not encourage it.

Although the amount of money devoted to antismoking cigarettes campaigns is a fleck in an ashtray compared with the billions spent by Big Tobacco, the ads that try to unsell cigarettes online strive to be every bit as creative as those on the other side -- or perhaps more so, given how much more difficult it is to break a habit than form one, particularly when a product contains addictive ingredients.

For instance, the American Legacy Foundation, whose ads seek to disclose the “Truth” about smoking cigarettes to teenagers and young adults, is bringing out a campaign that carries the theme “Do you have what it takes to be a discount cigarettes executive?”

The national campaign, by Arnold Worldwide in Boston, part of Havas, brings real job seekers to an office where an actor pretends to be a recruiter looking for executives to work in the tobacco industry. The actor asks the prospective employees whether they could sell a product that kills 5 million people a year or if they are interested in a post that might require them to “plead the Fifth” Amendment in testimony or depositions.

Many other efforts are taking place on a local level as cities and states encourage citizens to quit smoking cigarettes or obey much tougher restrictions on smoking cigarettes.

For instance, the New York City Department of Health has garnered attention for an aggressive campaign to fight smoking cigarettes. And the New York State Department of Health is running ads that urge consumers to ask supermarkets to end their sales of tobacco products.

Another local campaign of note is coming from Santa Monica, Calif., which has long been in the vanguard in the battle against cigarettes. The campaign, which carries the theme “Smoking doesn’t belong here,” adapts the children’s game of “One of these things is not like the others” to remind residents and visitors to obey the city’s far-reaching no-smoking cigarettes laws.

The campaign, with a total budget estimated at $150,000, was conceived and designed by the Brand Culture Company in Los Angeles and is being disseminated by the Santa Monica office of Southard Communications. The initiative was approved by the Santa Monica City Council in February.

The campaign is extensive, including ads that wrap the garbage cans on Santa Monica beaches, posters for bus stops and bank A.T.M. lines, reminder cards in four languages and kits for local businesses with materials like signs, window “clings” and brochures.

There was also an art contest for local schoolchildren to draw an ad; the winning entry, from a fifth grader, is to appear on 35 buses this summer.

The ads depict three or four images above the words “One of these doesn’t belong ...” or “One of these doesn’t belong here.” The images are tailored to the venue in which the ads appear.

For instance, ads for restaurants show a sheaf of wheat, a bundle of asparagus spears, a bunch of breadsticks and discount cigarettes tied together. “No smoking cigarettes in Santa Monica’s outdoor dining areas,” the ads advise.

Ads for the beach show a palm tree, a surf board and a cigarette. “No smoking cigarettes on Santa Monica’s beaches,” the ads declare.

Ads at bus stops show a bus wheel, a sign for the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus line, a bus token and an ashtray with a burning cigarette. “Please keep Santa Monica’s bus stops smoke-free,” the ads ask. “It’s for our environment. It’s for each other. It’s the law.”

Ads for A.T.M.’s show the screen of an A.T.M., an A.T.M. keypad, a bank card and a stack of cigarettes. “Please keep Santa Monica’s A.T.M. lines smoke-free,” the ads urge.

And ads for the city’s famous Third Street Promenade show a flower, a beach ball, an orange and a burning cigarette inside an ashtray. “No smoking cigarettes on the Third Street Promenade,” the ads say.

Although “there has been quite a bit of outreach and public education” about the no-smoking cigarettes rules, says Adam Radinsky, deputy city attorney for Santa Monica, this marks the first time agencies have been hired for a formal campaign.

“The city really felt it was worth doing right,” he adds, because of the importance of insuring compliance.

There is “a need for greater awareness” of all the provisions of the regulations, Mr. Radinsky says, because they will be “enforced by word-of-mouth, people knowing about them.”

“The key is getting the word out,” he adds, because “you get to that tipping point: Once people get to know there’s a law and it will be enforced, compliance is very, very high.”

There is also a need for a “uniform identity” for ads, posters and other materials, Mr. Radinsky says, because “having a unified theme and look definitely helps to give people the whole picture.”

The theme’s echoing of a children’s game is intended to make the ads “playful, a fun type of campaign,” he adds, “not too much the government telling you what to do, not too Big Brother-ish.”

Brand Culture and Southard teamed up on the effort after Roxana K. Janka, vice president at Southard, saw a request from the city of Santa Monica for proposals for a campaign.

Because the request for proposals “called for developing a brand,” she says, she reached out to Paul Burke, senior strategist at Brand Culture, which specializes “in brand strategy and brand identity work,” he says. The assignment was awarded to the Brand Culture-Southard team.

“Our brief was to be engaging but informative,” Mr. Burke says, so in developing the ads “we wanted to keep it simple, keep it very clear,” he added.

A brainstorming session yielded the idea to borrow from “Sesame Street” the learning game of “one of these is out of place” as the basis of the campaign, Mr. Burke says.

“In talking about the visuals, the patterns of shapes,” he adds, “we came up with matching them up with the iconic Santa Monica references.”

Ms. Janka offers another reason why “Sesame Street” may be on Mr. Burke’s mind: “He is a new father,” she says, with a son almost a year old.

The message the images deliver — that in Santa Monica, cheap cigarettes are out of place, literally and figuratively — is meant, Mr. Burke says, “to get straight to the heart of the matter” quickly because “you don’t get many shots to get people’s attention.”

“We felt strongly about the idea,” he adds, “and so, fortunately, did the city.”

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Correction: The Campaign Spotlight last week, about new advertising for Appleton Estate Jamaica Rum, misstated the proof of two varieties. Appleton Estate Reserve is 80 proof, not 40 proof, and Appleton Estate 12-year-old is 86 proof, not 43 proof.

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If you like In Advertising, be sure to read the Advertising column that runs Monday through Friday in the Business Day section of The New York Times print edition and on nytimes.com.



Other cigarettes news and tobacco market events you can find at links bellow:

   • Cigarettes & Tobacco News

   • Discount Cigarettes & Tobacco News

   • Discount-Cigarettes-Planet.Com Cigarettes News





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