Thailand''s Anti-smoking YouTube Hit

Source from:  Bangkok Post (th)  04/15/2013

A Thai anti-smoking advert goes viral on Youtube with over two million views in two weeks and winning praise from around the world.

The camera follows a little boy and a girl, walking up to men and women smoking in a public area outside an office building. Cigarette in hand, and in the casual manner of one smoker to another, they ask the adults for a lighter.

Shocked by the request, the smoking adults refuse to lend a light and begin lecturing the kids about the harm of tobacco.

Tension ensues and things get emotional and the kids shoot back: "If smoking is bad, why do you smoke?" They pass on a piece of paper to the smokers before walking away.

The note reads: "You're worried about me but why not about yourself?"

This is a Thai anti-tobacco campaign titled Smoking Kids, and its creepy, urgent power comes from its reality-TV style – a hand-held camera shot from various angles that seem to catch those smoking people unawares, plus the prankish twist that delivers the message and makes the adults blush.

Posted on YouTube, the video recently went viral. After just two weeks, the number of viewers has reached two million. Comments have flooded in from all over the world, mostly praising the effectiveness and intelligence of the campaign.

The Thai Health Promotion Foundation commissioned Ogilvy & Mather to create the video. It is a campaign made specifically for social media websites and not for television, and the first in a series of anti-smoking videos the national health agency is planning to roll out.

"We have seen a number of anti-smoking campaigns, local and international," says Nopadol Srikieatikajohn, executive creative director of Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok.

"For this one, we decided to make it real and actionable. It is a simple production but we focus more on ideas and copywriting in order to communicate with the audience directly and effectively."

At the end of the video, a message informs us that almost every adult who receives the anti-smoking note passed on by the children instantly stops to think, then throws the cigarette away.

None of them throws away the note. And most importantly, the message tells us that the number of phone inquiries by smokers who wanted to quit has increased by 40%.

Supatnuj Sorndamrih, social marketing specialist at the foundation, says the agency is pleased with the instant success of the campaign.

"The video really helps us get this message across."

Supatnuj said the video was based on research and the foundation believes that smokers know the danger of tobacco well but choose to ignore it. Enditem