Hasta La Creative!

Truth is out with a new anti-smoking ad, and it’s a long way from stacking body bags outside the offices of tobacco companies.

“Left Swipe Dat,” created by 72andSunny, features a parade of young pop stars and YouTube personalities singing a novelty song about rejecting people on the dating app Tinder for featuring cigarettes in their profile pictures. Singer Becky G anchors the video, with X-Factor-born girl group Fifth Harmony handling backup. Comedians King Bach and Timothy DeLeGhetto act as hype men. Harley Mortenstein of Epic Meal Time, Grace Helbig of it’sGrace, and AlphaCat each spit a guest verse. There are also cameos from Anna Akana, Jimmy Tatro and Terrence J.

In other words, if you were born before 1992 and don’t spend all of your time on YouTube, it’s exactly the right thing to make you feel old and confused and terrified.

Back in the late ’90s and early ’00s, teenagers smoked even though they knew it was bad for them, because the cool thing to do was not caring that it was bad for them. In fact, this video is exactly the kind of thing that would have made a teenager want to smoke, because a distant slow and painful death would have seemed preferable to the shame of being in any way aligned with such an earnest train wreck of an attempt to make something seem cool or not cool. Teens used to be smart, and dumb, like that. So, putting piles of dead people on screen was, like the other melodramatic but statistically driven scare tactics of the classic Truth campaign, in those days a much better bet.

Now, who knows?

Over-the-top crazy antics, bubblegum pop and exploding rainbows are what the kids are into these days, right? Also smartphones and Tinder? Or is all that stuff passé? It goes almost without saying that any teen anti-smoking message is a good message (assuming it doesn’t send them running in the opposite direction). It’s good, even if it is a bald-faced play to make teens think smoking means they won’t get laid, which is probably pretty scary for a lot of teens, too. Though ostensibly this is also aimed at millennials? Or are they just like overgrown teens? Questions abound.

Some Becky G fans, and Fifth Harmony fans—Harmonizers, as they call themselves—seem to like the clip, when they’re not busy hating it, and each other, for the perceived slight that their preferred stars didn’t get enough screen time. Others seem baffled, too, but they watched, for their idols.

So it maybe the whole thing is pretty sensible. Or maybe it’s better described as Satan-spawned earworm with a heart of gold.

Either way, after watching it, you’ll need a drink.

CREDITS
Client: Legacy
CMO: Eric Asche
VP, Marketing: Nicole Dorrler
Marketing Director: Mary Dominguez
Marketing Brand Manager: Jasmin Malone
Agency: 72andSunny
CCO, Partner: Glenn Cole
GCD: Mick DiMaria
GCD: Justin Hooper
Writer: Rebecca Ullman
Designer: Sarah Herron
Group Brand Director: Judson Whigham
Brand Director: Kristine Soto
Brand Manager: Everette Cooke
Brand Coordinator: Chelsea Gilroy
Chief Production Officer: Tom Dunlap
Director of Film Production: Sam Baerwald
Senior Film Producer: Marisa Wasser
Film Producer: Esther Perls
Director of Business Affairs: Michelle McKinney
Group Business Affairs Director: Amy Jacobsen
Business Affairs Manager: Amy Shah
Group Strategy Director: Matt Johnson
Strategy Director: Kasia Molenda
Strategist: Josh Hughes
Jr. Strategist: Spencer Adrian
Production Co.: DNA
Director: Director X
Partner: David Naylor
Executive Producer: Missy Galanida
Producer: Clark Jackson
DP: Omer Ganai
Casting: David Kang
Art Department: David Courtemarche
Editorial: Arcade Edit
E.P. Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Post Producer: Kirsten Thon-Webb
Editor: Nick Rondeau
Editor: Dean Miyahira
Assistant: Ryan Andrus
Post: Timber
Creative Directors: Kevin Lau & Jonah Hall
Executive Producer: Chris Webb
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Producer: Lauren Loftus
Digital Effects Supervisor: Nick Hiegel
Flame Artist: Miles Kinghorn, Lisa Tomei
Nuke: Josh Bolin, Krystal Chinn, Nick Hiegel
Roto/Tracking: Dylan Holden
Telecine: The Mill
Executive Producer: Thatcher Peterson
Colorist: Gregory Reese
Audio Mix: Lime Studios
Executive Producer: Jessica Locke
Mixer: Dave Wagg
Assistant Mixer: Adam Primack
Composer: Adam Schlesinger
Music and Talent Supervision: Jash
Executive Producer: Doug DeLuca
Executive Producer: Daniel Kellison
Executive Producer: Mickey Meyer
Executive Producer: Ty Braswell
Producer: Nick Veneroso
Producer: Celeste Hughey

Terrie Hall, who starred in Arnold's brutal national anti-smoking campaign for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, died this week in North Carolina. The image of Hall hiding the ravages of smoking-induced cancer with a wig, false teeth and a scarf is pretty harrowing, and the same can be said for her artificial voicebox. Those get used a lot in anti-smoking ads, but there's always something heartbreaking about them. I often wonder if people like Terrie are being exploited, if their real suffering should be harvested for a marketing effort, even one that's relevant to their condition. But the CDC says the campaign, called "Tips From Former Smokers," prompted 100,000 people to quit. "She was a public health hero," CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said of Hall. "She may well have saved more lives than most doctors do." Hall was 53.

"Just because I fart at parties now and then, it doesn't make me a farter." That's how I plan to begin my memoirs, and it's also a key line in the Ontario Ministry of Health's "Quit the Denial" campaign from BBDO Toronto, directed by the Perlorian Brothers. We meet a gassy lass who lets fly when partying with friends, dancing or chatting up guys. She asks one dude coquettishly, "Do you want to go outside for a fart?" (Where's this noxious angel been all my life?) She is, of course, in denial, just like people who claim to be "social smokers" and insist they're not addicts. (A companion spot features "social nibblers" who mooch food from other people's plates. But there's no farting in that one, so who cares?) It's a splendidly sophomoric approach and definitely diverting, though I wonder if it's ultimately too light and insubstantial, lacking substance—like, oh I don't know, a passing wind, perhaps? Besides, if there were no more smokers, who's going to add some spark to these farty parties by lighting a match?

Most of us have vices, those haunting addictions or habits that are unhealthy, uncool,  unapproved, against the law, or absurdly annoying. From eating too much red meat to knuckle-cracking, there is something you do that is bad for you. For me, it’s waking up, but I’m trying to stop.

We have habits that offend others, those that offend our bodies, and some that do both. The poster-child for the “both” category has got to be smoking. Not only is it terrible for you, it’s terrible for others, and in many places, against the law. Efforts to get people to stop smoking have ranged from protests and ad campaigns to changing laws and levying huge tax increases.

Personally, I could care a less if you smoke–unless you mean something to me–which most of you don’t. However, if you are a smoker and want to quit, there is a new spot out of Australia that might be able to help. Unfortunately, it has become controversial, aka “offensive,” so use it while you can. Truly powerful television.