I still can't figure out why people smoke.

While I was having lunch today I saw a bus pass by with an anti-smoking ad on its side. That's cool, smoking really should be baned, as it is a lot of cities have made it illegal to smoke in bars and clubs now. But what struck me about this ad was that it really doesn't work.

See an ad needs to attract the attention of its target audience and speak to them in a language that they can understand. For an example take Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Sure it was a good piece exposing the corruption and generally suspect nature of the US invasion of Iraq, but there was one major flaw to the whole thing; it preached to the choir. Those who already agreed with the view-point where the most likely to go see it. It is doubtful that it changed any minds though it may have reached some who were on the fence.

When it comes to anti-smoking campaigns the same principal applies, don't speak to those who don't smoke, speak to the smokers. I think the Canadian government did a great job of this with the warning labels on cigarette packages. Images like this catch everybody's attention:

More of those warning labels can be found here.

The ad that I saw on the bus however read "Smoking narrows your arteries", with an image of a cigarette narrowed in the middle. Fair enough, it is a true statement, but here's a question, how many of you can tell me what the problem is with having narrow arteries? Not many of you really know what the dangers are, hell I can only guess at what they are. Now do you think a smoker is likely to be smart enough to realize what the dangers or narrowed arteries are? I don't think so. Let's face it, to smoke in this day and age and to be highly educated is not very common.

So as a consequence I don't think that the ad on the bus is likely going to help show smokers the folly in their habit. Fortunately there are some good campaigns out there which I think can get through to smokers. But with the price of a pack of cigarettes at around three to four dollars, there isn't the same kind of financial incentive to quite as is found in Canada with cigarette at around $10 a pack.