Aggressive new anti-tobacco ad campaign jabs celebrity smoking

The Truth anti-tobacco effort is back with a bold, hard-hitting new television advertisement that takes aim at smoking celebrities as unwitting shills for big tobacco.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on August 26, 2014

Those who chose to watch this year’s MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday got to see the ugly side of smoking among top celebrities caught on camera with their cigarettes. The new Truth ad played in commercial breaks during the Awards and will continue to air nationally.

The new ad delivers few words but does so in a bold, in-your-face way, as it features not-so-flattering photographs of a number of entertainment celebrities smoking, including Rihanna, Orlando Bloom, Lady Gaga, and Kristin Stewart. Background music played behind the images features the lyric, “Don’t let me throw it down.”

Many of the photos are stamped with the words, “Unpaid Tobacco Spokesperson.”

“Every time one of these photos gets posted, big tobacco gets tons of free marketing,” the ad reads near the beginning.

The ad is intended to take aim at what is supposed to be the glamorous presentation of smoking designed to influence others. The organization behind the ad is Iowa-based Legacy, an anti-tobacco group that is spending $50 million this year on smoking cessation campaigns. The money comes from a 1998 settlement that awarded Iowa and 45 other states $206 billion paid by the tobacco companies.

Iowa spends $5.1 million each year on anti-tobacco ads, which on its own seems like a lot but pales in comparison to the $90 million the tobacco companies will spend this year in the state. Experts suggest that Iowa bump its spending up to $30 million per year to thwart the efforts of the tobacco companies.

The new ad harkens back to the style and force of the Truth Campaign ads from several years ago.

“The ‘Truth Campaign’ took the approach that the tobacco companies are manipulating you, the tobacco companies are using you,” said Iowa Attorney General and Legacy board member Tom Miller.

The goal of the ad is to prompt more people to quit smoking or not start smoking in the first place, and the target audience is primarily the nation’s youth.