Japan Tobacco launched a new campaign to remind smokers to mind their manners. This ad is one of four designs that evoke misleading newspaper diagrams. The messages are good—I cringe every time Tod lights a cigarette on a crowded street—but the delivery is weird.
Although Tokyo’s nowhere near as anti-smoking as the US, the past few years have seen more public spaces become “no smoking zones.” Japan Tobacco makes an effort to teach their customers better manners while promoting smoking. Will better manners prevent anti-smoking laws? Maybe. If smoking ceases to be a daily nuisance for non-smokers, then why bother with laws? But I don’t think than an ad campaign is enough to make a difference.
And neither does Japan Tobacco. “Smokers’ style” is their ongoing smoking campaign title. It has a cute stylised leaf logo—so natural, just like smoking.
Smokers’ style is more than just ads. They maintain a large indoor smoking space in Akihabara and two mobile trailers (SmoCars) in no-smoking zones to give people a place to feed their addiction. JT also sponsors clean-up teams that sweep the streets free of cigarette butts and hand out portable ashtrays.
You can find out more about the Smokers’ style manners plan, including photos of the SmoCars and all of the new ads at JT Delight World.
Posted by kuri at March 15, 2004 11:26 AMAs long as smokers share space with non-smokers, the laws of physics (convection, diffusion of gases) mean that the only courtesy that will matter is not smoking, or if people must smoke, then not exhaling.
It is nonsense to imagine that the height at which you hold a cigarette, whether you blow out horizontally or aiming at the ceiling, etc. make any difference at all.
Posted by: on March 15, 2004 12:21 PMAnyway I hope my husnand to stop somking!!!!! Sorry it’s not a good comment to your blog!
Posted by: Mieko on March 15, 2004 05:56 PMI’d love a tShirt with the first graphic on it. “I am holding 700° C in my hand.” Nice.
Posted by: Mike on March 16, 2004 05:43 AM