The anti-smoking campaign that used real people and their scars

The CDC's Tips From Former Smokers campaign is built on a decision that
separates it from most public health advertising: it does not describe risks.
It introduces people.

Each advertisement is one named former smoker and one specific consequence,
told in their own words.

What that looks like

• Amanda B. tried hard to quit when she learned she was pregnant, and
  could not overcome her addiction. She talks about the weeks her baby
  daughter spent in a hospital incubator, born two months early weighing **3
  pounds**.
• Annette S., 57, was diagnosed with lung cancer at 49. In her
  advertisement she shows the giant scar on her back from the surgery to
  remove her lung.
• Angie P. grew up surrounded by menthol cigarette advertising — in shops,
  magazines, social media, online and at events, aggressively targeted at many
  communities. She smoked for 27 years before quitting.
• Anne G. wanted her baby to have a healthy start, so she quit and made
  her home smoke-free. She says life has never been better.
• Beatrice R., a 39-year-old who quit at 37, holds up a letter her son
  wrote asking her to stop. The headline: let your kids inspire you to quit.

Why it is built this way

A statistic about lung cancer is an abstraction that a smoker can decline to
apply to themselves. A photograph of Annette's scar is not.

The campaign also refuses the obvious moral framing. Amanda's advertisement is
not about a woman who would not quit; it is about a woman who **tried hard and
could not**, because nicotine addiction is the thing being described. Angie's
is not about a poor choice; it is about **an industry that placed its
advertising where she grew up**.

And Beatrice's carries the line that does the campaign's real work: *there are
a lot of reasons to quit smoking. Don't stop trying until you find yours.* Not
one argument aimed at everybody — permission to keep looking for the one that
applies to you.

*Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tips From Former
Smokers® campaign.*