Video: award-winning public-service ads designed to scare smokers into quitting

View ads from Massachusetts and Armenia designed to scare smokers into quitting.

while directing tobacco-control efforts for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, professor of the practice of public health Gregory N. Connolly oversaw a campaign of public-service ads designed to scare smokers into quitting and to keep youths from viewing the habit as glamorous. The award-winning ads—some brutally graphic—aired in the state from 1995 to 2001 and became a model for similar efforts in other states and countries.

View six examples here:

 

Armenia is one of a dozen nations that have developed anti-smoking ad campaigns in consultation with scholars at Harvard School of Public Health. The video below includes two ads from the Armenia campaign. In the first, the message is that one shouldn't gamble with one's health; in the second, that smoking around one's children is like the children themselves smoking.

You might also like

How AI Is Reshaping Supply Chains

Harvard Kennedy School lecturer on using AI to strengthen supply chains

This Astronomer is Sounding a Warning on ‘Space Junk’

As debris accumulates in low Earth orbit, the danger of destructive collisions continues to rise.

Understanding AI Vulnerabilities

As artificial intelligence capabilities evolve, so too will the tactics used to exploit them. 

Most popular

In 2004, a frenzy spread across Harvard Yard in days. Four billion users later, we are only just catching up.

Long-discussed reorganization includes layoffs and the end of the Dudley Community.

FAS leaders say restructuring will be complete by mid-October.

Explore More From Current Issue

A vase of yellow flowers on a table next to an orange and a glass.

Harvard Art Museums restores a rare glimpse of an American master.

Two laboratory researchers, one seated and one standing, in a scientific lab with equipment.

The stakes are high for this husband and wife: one of them will die if they don’t find a cure.

Three hands hold smartphones displaying social media profiles with likes and hearts.

Tell us about how social media impacts your daily life.