Everyone’s smoking. Back then, on screen and off, smoking was everywhere. Restaurants, aeroplanes, office cubicles, you name it, they were all bathed in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Fast forward 30 years, and smoking is very much out of vogue. And sure, some of that has to do with legislation banning smoking indoors. But the biggest factor in the demise of cigarettes was the fact that smoking became uncool. And that, my friends, was alllll marketing.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

p.s. enjoy this slightly pared-back YAP as our team takes a few days off for Easter xx

It’s defined as a flexible, large-scale practice that uses science and commercial marketing practices to influence voluntary behaviour change for social good, rather than profit.

From encouraging vaccination, safe sex, recycling to preventing drunk driving and promoting the use of seatbelts, you would have seen adverts about all of these things at some stage in your life, particularly watching tv in the 90s and 2000s.

Now, I never got to experience the era of smoking on planes or in restaurants. But I am old enough to have been on planes with ashtrays (no longer in use) in the armrests. And I grew up on my grandmother’s lap inhaling 20 second-hand Marlboro reds a day (I’m fine, really).

I would have been around 5 when I used to fake sick from school to hang out with her and enjoy the waft of carcinogenic smoke she provided. (I was there for the ice-cream and Days of Our Lives re-runs okay).

That would make it 2001.

Based on estimates from the World Health Organization, that year roughly 1.1 billion people in the entire world were regular smokers. That’s 46.2 million in the U.S., and 750,000 in New Zealand, where I’m from.

In the U.S., the adult smoking rate has been slashed by half, to just 11.5%. Here in New Zealand, the number of daily smokers has plummeted to a record low of 6.8%. In little more than two decades, we’ve gone from one in four Kiwis lighting up to roughly one in fifteen. It's a shift that represents nearly half a million people who have successfully walked away from the habit for good.

This basically makes the anti-smoking movement the gold standard for social change. And I feel there’s a lot we can learn as marketers from something so f*cking solid. Class is in session, dear friends.

Sorry to start us off on a morbid note, but hey, do you want to learn or not.

The Tips From Former Smokers campaign was launched by the CDC in 2012, after advocates realised that fear of death was not a good enough motivator. Which sounds literally insane, until you put in perspective that such high-level threats, like dying, are often too large for the brain to process. Kind of like, ok, I die, and then? We can’t really see past that.

What isn’t too large for the brain to process, is grimy real-world sh*t. Like having to shave around a hole in your neck, losing your teeth, or tying a scarf over your stoma.

Pretty easy to imagine how unfun that would be.

The lesson here is when you want to make an impact, focus on friction, not just failure. In the same way that "dying" was too abstract for smokers, "failure" or "ruin" is often too big for a customer to care about. You need to sell them on the small things, the daily peeves and annoyances that you or your product removes.

In other words, market the restoration of ease, not just the avoidance of disaster.

One of the main reasons these campaigns saw such great success was because they stopped treating smoking as a personal choice, and started treating it as a social disadvantage.

We all know smoking used to be pretty f*cking cool. James Dean and Audrey Hepburn made it rebellious and iconic. Pulp Fiction made it hot and sexy. Obviously, marketers had to stub that image out.

Here in New Zealand, the main tagline from my childhood was “Smoking: Not OUR Future” that used youth role models to reframe the habit as a “put off” – in other words, they got people with clout to tell you you’d lose aura for smoking.

People aren’t just motivated by health, especially not young people who feel invincible. But they are motivated by belonging. By making smoking uncool instead of just unhealthy, these campaigns shifted the social reward from lighting up to quitting. 

The lesson here? Build a “vibe” that excludes the old way of doing things or thinking.

Instead of merely promoting your product, reframe the alternative as “old news” or “the way things used to be.” Use social proof to show that the cooler, smarter, more efficient crowd has already moved on.

If you think about Tesla or Oatly, you’ll notice these brands don’t market in a way that says, “we are car” or “we are milk.” They say dairy and gas are dusty and archaic - catch up.

The award-winning "truth" campaign in the U.S. realised that teenagers naturally rebel against authority. So, instead of telling kids “don’t smoke” which instantly sounds like a lecture no one's going to fkn listen to, they framed the tobacco industry as a manipulative corporate machine trying to control them. The irony is insane, I know.

What we can learn from this is if you want to change behaviour in a highly sceptical audience (like teens), give them a villain. So instead of fighting the smoker (themselves, each other), they fought the industry's “deceptive practises.”

In modern marketing, that villain could look like systemic frustration in your industry, like hidden fees or corporate greed. Liquid Death uses bottled water as theirs. Position your brand as the rebel ally for your consumer.

If you give people something to root against, they’ll naturally root for you.

Psychological research tells us that fear appeals only really work if you can immediately provide a safety net, or a clear way out. Without this, people shut down or even get defensive.

So anti-smoking campaigns paired hard hitting messages with efficacy labels such as hope and clear action steps (like calling a Quitline). This allowed fear to start the engine but hope and helpful tools (like NRT or support lines) to actually drive the message forward.

It’s up to us as marketers to provide the bridge from problem to solution.

Identify the pain point, then offer immediate and frictionless action. Whether that’s a Quitline number being visible the entire ad, or a “start for free” option – never leave the customer in a state of “so what do I do now?”

We all know motivation has a very short shelf life (just think about how quickly you can talk yourself out of going to the gym). If you don’t provide the exact tool to act on that motivation immediately, the marketing spend is wasted.

Because whether you’re selling software, sneakers, or oat milk, you’re participating in the same invisible architecture of choice that cleared the smoke out of those aeroplanes.

The anti-smoking campaign proved that marketing is about editing the cultural script. It proved that if you can align human psychology with a clear bridge to action, you can literally change the air we breathe.

My grandmother’s living room was a product of the 20th century’s most effective marketing. My adulthood is a product of the 21st century's most effective counter-attack.

As marketers, we have the tools to decide what the next "ashtray in the armrest" is going to be. Whether you're fighting a global health crisis or just a clunky user experience, the rules are the same: Find the friction, define the vibe, name the villain, and for goodness sake, give them a way out.

Class dismissed. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The trend starts with the line “In a world full of…” followed by a type of person or stereotype. The video that follows then shows that you are part of that group. It’s a simple format that works because people instantly recognise themselves in it.

Creators are using it to call out the communities, habits, or lifestyles they are very much part of. Think “in a world full of shopping addicts and pilates girlies” followed by a clip that proves they actually match that stereotype. The humour comes from owning the stereotype rather than pretending you’re different from it.

Write “In a world full of…” in the on-screen text and name the group you belong to. Then use the clip to show yourself fully fitting into that category.

A few ideas to get you started:

-Georgia Russell, Intern

Hey Rach!

There are so many ways you can go about getting people onto your email list. First, you could consider creating some gated content. This should be something especially valuable that requires your audience to enter their email to get access. Then, you can use social media to get the word out about these resources. Another way to get email sign-ups is to do some free webinars for your target audience. You can promote these on LinkedIn and require an email to register.

Since you're just starting out, you should definitely be going to as many networking and industry events as you can, too. You may not collect emails from the people you meet (although you might), but connect with your new contacts on LinkedIn and stay in touch there. Building up a database will be a slow grind, but the more you get out and meet people, the faster your network will grow.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.