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The 37 Most Shocking Anti-Smoking Ads Ever - But Do They Work?

by James Dunworth Lifestyle Science

These shocking ads will repel, disgust, intrigue, confuse - and possibly even arouse!

But the most shocking information is not an advert, but a little known fact ignored by the makers of these ads. Read on to find out what it is - and find out what smoker's/ex-smokers reactions are to these adverts.

Sexual/Erotic Anti-Smoking Adverts

French Stop Smoking ad: A woman kneels before a man - a cigarette in her mouth.

Oral sex anti-smoking advert.

A poster uses naked bodies to illustrate just where smoking causes the most damage. Impotence anti-smoking poster.

A mother

Political

Burning cigarettes represent the twin towers of the WTC in this ASH anti-smoking ad.

Denormalisation/Anti-fashion

A dog puffs with a cigarette in its mouth. Inconsiderate ad.

A mouth is used as an ashtray in this stop smoking poster.

A hook pulls the mouth of this smoker towards the camera in this NHS stop smoking ad.

A man with a leg becoming a cigarette.

This quit-smoking ad shows teeth stained by cigarette smoke.

Stained and rotten teeth appear in this quit poster.

Kissing a smoker... A hand grasps the hand of a smoker submerged by a pile of stinking cigarette butts. <

Think of the children

Kids are fast learners: A child holds a cigarette in his hand. A child smokes in this anti-smoking poster.

An image of a premature baby on a quit smoking ad.

A boy appears to be covered by plastic-resembing smoke in this anti-smoking poster.

A child is surrounded by a HALO of smoke.

A young and and old body lie together in this morgue.

A foetus lies dead next to a cigarette.

Health...

A woman puffs outside a poster showing fatty deposits oozing out of a cigarette. Shocking poster pointing out the various health effects of a cigarette on a young woman.

Smoking doubles the risk of smoke announces this ad against the backdrop of a bleeding brain.

A woman shows off her amputated fingers.

A horrific tumour on a man

"This is what dying of lung cancer looks like," reads the text next to this victim of the disease.

A woman dying of lung cancer thinks of her children.

And death...

A man hangs from a ceiling in this suicide anti-smoking advert.

A rotting head is featured in this smoking kills poster.

Smokers appear to be standing in an open grave in this Indian quit-smoking ad.

Horror

A skull forms at the end of a cigarette.

A distorted, rotting face leers at this smoking model from her mirror.

A woman

A torn, bleeding head is used to illustrate this quit-smoking ad.

And the most shocking fact of all...

Anti-smoking adverts don't work.

At least, not according to research by Martin Lindstrom.

The advertising guru and author of Buyology has taken the science of advertising to new levels by scanning target audience's brains while flashing adverts at them.

And as we chronicled last year, he found that cigarette adverts not only fail to deter smokers from smoking, they actually increase the desire for nicotine!

The problem being, unfortunately, that shocking ads trigger the same part of the brain that stimulates desire for nicotine.

Let's find out!

But that's only one study.

And of course, it only measured the short term effect of adverts, and not the effect on long term motivation.

So I am holding an informal poll to find out what smokers and vapers (e-cigarette users) think.

Do/Did these adverts make you feel like:

a. Quitting? b. Having a cigarette? c. Have no effect on you?

(It is of course quite possible that it made you feel like both a AND b.)

I'm also interested to know whether you think quit smoking ads are acceptable, given their stated aim of saving lives, or an unjustified attack on people enjoying a legal activity.

Leave your answer and opinion in the comments below. And I'd also be very grateful if you could share this post by clicking on one of the share buttons below - I am keen to get as many responses as possible!

If you found this post interesting, you'll probably also enjoy:

The Top Ten Most Bizarre Ways to Quit Smoking

Competition note: Thanks to everyone who entered our recent competition - the winners are Louise Popovich and Jayne Perrett.

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