I’m very happy to be able to release this project on mankind as it has all the elements of a campaign that I love – collaboration.

In one shot, I’ve met a client that is progressive and open-minded to new ways of doing things. I get to develop a campaign spanning mediums with some of the best talent there is in Prince Edward County, including local youth, and, most of all, I get to have fun doing so.

Julie Duda, project lead from the Youth Tobacco Vortal Project/SmokeFX, a program geared toward helping youth live a healthy lifestyle, approached me about putting together a campaign to entice teens to quit smoking. I jumped at the project and began preliminary concept and background work and, in doing so, discovered teenagers have been bombarded with traditional anti-smoking advertising for decades. I showed some of the material to my 14 year-old daughter, Avery, and asked her how effective she thought the examples were. Her response was there would be no way she would pay attention to the ads, executed mostly in print on posters and ads in magazines. Her reaction made me take a step back from developing an anti-smoking campaign and, instead, focus on how to reach teenagers in the first place.

Normally the words “focus group” sends shivers down my back. The idea of concepts being run by committee scares me but, I have to admit, this was one of the most helpful focus groups I have ever been a part of. Hearing first-hand from the youth about how they communicate and share information today is dramatically different from that of adults. Jennifer Lester caught the specifics around their habits on her blog and, in a nutshell, teenagers live online if they are not in class. They are living behind the screens of their computers and cell phones. More importantly, if they are going to see and share something online it has to fit one of three criteria:

1) It has to show someone hurting themselves
2) It has to be funny
3) Or, it has to be gross

Taking all of this information into account the winning concept was born. To give credit where it’s due, it was inspired by an interview with a young woman at Kelly’s Shop, Stacey. I asked Stacey a number of questions about smokers she knew, including, “What is it like dating a smoker?” Her response, “It’s like kissing an ashtray,” inspired the play on words used in our campaign – Smells like Ash!

Gross and funny right?

The idea spurred on the decision to create a social media-based campaign geared toward youth using the funny and gross criteria in mediums teenagers actually use. It turns out to be one of our greatest collaboration stories to date directly, including Crowe Video Productions, Wink and Nod Communications, Jennifer Lester, SlyFi Chapel, Michael Grills Photography, The ROC2, The Crowe family and the youth of the County: Jillian, Heather, Victoria, Jenna, Dillan, Graydon, Mellanie, Katie, Kyle, Avery. Thank you!

Below are the first wave of online videos:

The youth seen in the videos gave 100 per cent to the project and braved any teasing they may get by shaving their tongue, vomiting up mints or dumping an entire bottle of mouth wash over their head. An interesting side note on the campaign was that we were able to accomplish the message without showing cigarettes and not embarrassing smokers into quitting.

We’re going to be following these up with some awesome behind the scenes photos, interviews and promotional material, including ‘Smells like ash’ gum and mints, which will be distributed across Ontario in the upcoming weeks.

Follow the campaign:
Facebook @ www.facebook.com/smellslikeash
Twitter @ www.twitter.com/SmellsLikeAsh
Youtube @ www.youtube.com/smellslikeash