It seems like there’s always so much attention paid to the negative impacts of smoking, but little attention has been given to the positive impacts of quitting smoking–that is until now. In a new interactive campaign Arnold, New York, and GlaxoSmithKline have teamed up to introduce a new reason for women to give up smoking–the beauty benefits. Not only will their lungs breathe easier when they kick the habit, but so will their skin.
Research showed that women understand that smoking damages their appearance, however they didn’t realize that quitting could actually have positive effects on their skin. The realization inspired them to quit.
“The fact is that most people don’t know that quitting smoking can help improve your skin. Every year women spend millions of dollars on beauty products to improve their appearance but actually if they quit smoking and really do it, that’s going to make the biggest difference of all. People don’t know that. It’s both shocking and obvious at the same time,” said Sasha Koren, executive creative director at Arnold.
Through print ads in magazines such as Cosmo, Allure and Vogue. and a website, nicodermcq.com, GSK’s NicodermCQ “Beauty of Quitting” campaign seeks to alert women to the positive effects quitting smoking has on the health of their skin and as a result, turn the quitting experience into something to look forward to.
The print ads point out things like limiting smoker’s lines, preventing grey skin, deleting toxins and avoiding vitamin loss, but Koren explained that the website provides a deeper exploration of the campaign’s educational component.
“One of the things we are trying to do with the web is give the user an additional benefit,” related Koren. “When you go online, the mindset and the behavior is different than when you see something in an ad. It’s much more about taking action and moving forward than it is about having a perceptual change. We are looking to pay that off with personalized information and really helping users get something for themselves.”
For instance, the website features a personalized beauty assessment tool to help visitors see how smoking has affected their skin’s health over the years and find out what they can do to stop the damage.
“Not only does it provide credible advice, but advice that is for them and not for the general public,” said Koren, adding that this lends itself to the viral aspect of the campaign.
“When you provide something of real value to themselves, they will talk about it. It’s got to be meaningful to the user first and then they will pass it on.”
The site also features in-depth information about NicodermCQ and a contest to win a $500 cosmetics gift card, as well as a section where visitors can click on various areas of the face to reveal more beauty benefits of quitting.
One of the key components that contributes to the stickiness of the site is a 10-week beauty e-mail program designed to last the length of the NicodermCQ program.
Visitors sign up and receive an e-mail each week related to beauty tips and general health, really extending the beauty of the quitting message.
The biggest challenge in sharing that message throughout a campaign with multiple touch points is maintaining consistency of voice. To achieve that objective, Koren explained that the Arnold team decided to use the same writer for the offline and online work.
Overall the challenges did not outweigh the satisfaction everyone felt working on the “Beauty of Quitting” campaign.
“This program is really something for the good of people. The projects I find most rewarding are the ones where you are not just selling a product–you are doing something that is going to benefit people’s lives,” Koren said.
Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Cartoonist and Writer, Dies At 95
Jules Feiffer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and writer whose prolific output ranged from a long-running comic strip to plays, screenplays and children's books, died Friday. He was 95 and, true to his seemingly tireless form, published his last book just four months ago.
Feiffer's wife, writer JZ Holden, said Tuesday that he died of congestive heart failure at their home in Richfield Springs, New York, and was surrounded by friends, the couple's two cats and his recent artwork.
Holden said her husband had been ill for a couple of years, "but he was sharp and strong up until the very end. And funny."
Artistically limber, Feiffer hopscotched among numerous forms of expression, chronicling the curiosity of childhood, urban angst and other societal currents. To each he brought a sharp wit and acute observations of the personal and political relations that defined his readers' lives.
As Feiffer explained to the Chicago Tribune in 2002, his work dealt with "communication and the breakdown thereof, between men and women, parents and children, a government and its citizens, and the individual not dealing so well with authority."
Feiffer won the United States' most prominent awards in journalism and filmmaking, taking home a 1986 Pulitzer Prize for his cartoons and "Munro," an animated short film he wrote, won a 1961 Academy Award. The Library of Congress held a retrospective of his work in 1996.
"My goal is to make people think, to make them feel and, along the way, to make them smile if not laugh," Feiffer told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in 1998. "Humor seems to me one of the best ways of espousing ideas. It gets people to listen with their guard down."
Feiffer was born on Jan. 26, 1929, in the Bronx. From... Read More