We've re-released the iconic Quit “Emphysema” ad. Despite being nearly 20 years old, this ad will resonate with a new generation through its compelling narrative inviting the listener to imagine what it feels like to have the deadly lung disease, emphysema.
Reducing tobacco use remains a critical public health challenge. While vaping is creating a new generation of nicotine addiction, tobacco-caused disease is still the leading cause of preventable death, killing more than 20,000 Australians every year.
Provocative, evidence-based health promotion advertising has always been a central pillar of Australia’s impressive legacy of tobacco control. Ads like “Emphysema” contributed to reducing adult smoking from near 50% in the 1950s to just 9% today.
Cancer Council Victoria has played a major part in making these ads by funding the first anti-tobacco television advertising campaign in 1971, which highlighted the links between smoking and lung cancer. And since 1986, our behavioural scientists in the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer have provided vital data to craft the most effective messages for campaigns to support smoking prevention and accelerate cessation.
Across 60-seconds, the “Emphysema” ad takes the audience through the experience of late-stage emphysema by asking them to take a deep breath, then another on top, and then to breathe out just the last bit of air, and then to try to breathe again. The narrator explains that “this is what breathing is like with emphysema”, it feels “like you’re suffocating”.
Visceral metaphor creates the ads’ power by allowing audiences to understand the bodily effects of smoking without shaming people who smoke. This drew on a long tradition in Australian anti-tobacco advertising beginning with the 1979 “Sponge” ad.
But the “Emphysema” ad is special because it evokes the actual feeling of tobacco-induced disease for the audience alongside a warning. The narrator says: “if you smoke, chances are you already have emphysema in its early stages”.
Inspiration for the “Emphysema” ad came from researcher Oscar Auerbach, who in the 1950s autopsied lungs and discovered emphysema in virtually all people who smoked. Clinician Matthew Peters provided the seed for the metaphor by describing the torture of breathing with emphysema for patients with advanced disease.
We know that highlighting the health harms of smoking remains one of the most effective ways to motivate people to quit and this ad will deeply impact new listeners, just as it did two decades ago.
To support to stop smoking or vaping for yourself or a loved one, call 13 7848 jump online or find out more about Quit smoking campaigns at the link below.
