EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR, Vice

Nobody likes this client (including me), how can you? — they have literally killed people.

When Philip Morris approached the team at Vice they had a very unusual, suspect, and counter-intuitive ask — if Philip Morris wanted to get people to quit smoking cigarettes, what would we do?

After a ton of research into the subject matter and the forthrightness of the ask — we presented a plan.

In 2019 our mixed-media, information-driven approach of content, editorial, and advertising went live in the UK.

We never thought it would work. Independently tracked and measured by IPSOS our effort was the first anti-smoking campaign to create quit attempts in +30% of those exposed to our efforts.

Instead of telling people what to do, we refrained from judgment and educated them in all of the forces that kept them from succeeding. I still believe that a challenge to a behavior will always have more of an impact than shame.

Strategy, Creative, Branding case-studies below.