An actual post about an actual bit of work

Carole and Helen, the creative team I get to gaze at dreamily all day through a gap in the bookshelves, have come up with this beauty for the NHS stop smoking campaign.
‘Stop smoking what?’ you may ask.
The reason for this acid-trip approach lies deep in the psyche of your average smoker. The challenge the guys were faced with is that smokers will discount people portrayed in ads (particularly ads from the NHS) by saying “that’s not me, you don’t know me, how dare you judge my life I hate you I’m going to smoke a cigarette”.
So the idea was, don’t show people.
The team originally presented animation as a route but the client said a big fat NO. So they came right back at them with surreal-crazy-shit-that’s-shot.
I think it’s one of those instances where a client comment improves things. After all, there’s a lot of animation out there at the moment, but how many other giant rubber gloves, teapots and penguins have you seen lately?
All the crazy shit is loosely related (and I mean loooooooooosely related) to the journey of someone quitting smoking. Penguins are a big family, which is about support. The lollipop lady is about someone helping you on your way. Brass bands convey a sense of bombastic triumph when you quit. And rubber gloves are, err… you know, what you put on when you’re doing the washing up. And not smoking.
It’s early days but it seems to be pulling like a train. Nice one girls. Whatever you’ve been smoking, it’s obviously working.