EU MTV Smoke Screen

The task was to create an exciting and relevant ‘edu-tainment’ based campaign that gave the client a new way of communicating the anti-smoking message across a digital only platform.

BE VIACOM were asked to encourage youth across Europe to live a healthier lifestyle through quitting smoking and provide them with a voice whilst also demonstrating concern and empathising with smokers.

Experience has taught us that if you give young people an incentive to get engaged it has a significant impact on the level of response; we therefore wanted to encourage users to watch and interact with the content in order to gain a chance of winning.

MTV launched Smoke Screen; a social project in conjunction with the European Commission’s HELP! campaign.

For one month, 10 smokers from across Europe embarked on a personal quest to give up the habit of a lifetime with the help of MTV and the European Commission. Each were given their own quitting method – ranging from hypnotherapy, to acupuncture to straight cold-turkey – and charged with blogging about their experience.