Ad Nut
Oct 13, 2016

Ad from tobacco firm seems to have anti-smoking message

Ominous, smoke-like wisps threaten a group of healthy, young people. Or is something else going on here?

This is a very interesting piece of work. It comes from a cigarette brand in Indonesia. However, it shows an ominous-looking vapour or smoke-like substance emerging from a long, cylindrical object. At first the nefarious wisps merely make the people dance in odd ways and make funny faces. But as the ad progresses, a weird, whiteish growth starts to appear on exposed surfaces and on people's skin. Oh, it's ice crystals!

Even Ad Nut can see the obvious parallel to the way smoking, and even second-hand smoke, damages health and eventually leaves people cold in the grave. It's a bit surprising that a tobacco company would make a film conveying such a strong anti-smoking message, but Ad Nut welcomes the change! 

Hang on...the ad ended but the people didn't drop dead.

Perhaps Ad Nut has misunderstood. But surely no one these days would be making tobacco advertising that simply strives to make smoking seem 'cool'. Would they? We got over that decades ago. And certainly ad agencies, which normally try so hard to convince the world that they're a force for good, wouldn't be complicit in such harmful activity, would they?

Maybe the nice people at Dentsu One, or Gudang Garam, or Seven Sunday Films, would like to help clear up Ad Nut's confusion?

CREDITS

Product : GG Shiver
Agency : Dentsu One
Director : Bo Krabbe
DOP : Torben Forsberg
Executive Producer : Rachel Srisumarsih

Ad NutAd Nut is a surprisingly literate woodland creature that for some unknown reason has an unhealthy obsession with advertising. Ad Nut gathers ads from all over the world and presents them for your viewing pleasure. Because Ad Nut loves you.

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Source:
Campaign Asia

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