The Truth made a giant cultural splash in the 90’s by tapping into Gen X angst and blowing the whistle on the shadiness of the big tobacco industry. As the name would suggest, the brand focused on revealing closely guarded facts that demonstrated big tobacco’s manipulative practices and willful disregard for public health.

Fast forward to 2014 and The Truth brand felt like it was culturally stagnant and failing to connect with the millennial generation. They needed a new marketing partner and 72andSunny was up for the challenge.

We knew that teens in 2014 didn’t lack information. They walked around with all of the world’s knowledge in their pockets, so pummeling them with logical reasons why it’s bad to smoke would be redundant. Science also told us that the teenage brain is physically incapable of fully comprehending long term consequences, so logical appeals to their future selves would fall on deaf ears. This campaign needed to attack the emotional and irrational triggers that lead to teens experimenting with cigarettes.

Our research revealed that millennials had a potent generational pride that compelled them to make an impact on the world and get credit for it. They were tired of hearing about the (self-described) ‘greatest generation’ and being labeled as self-absorbed, computer-bound slackers. In fact, they were already making significant headway in the fights against bullying and climate change. We knew that they were an underrated generation that was hungry to make an impact.

Hidden deep within their briefing materials, The Truth shared one particularly interesting statistic with us: they told us that a big part of their brand relevancy problem was due to the fact that only 9% of teens in the U.S. smoked combustible cigarettes. It just wasn’t a big problem in their eyes. That was our light bulb moment and we pounced on it.

We decided to flip the script by positioning the fight against teen tobacco use as a winnable battle and an epic badge of honor for the millennials to claim as their own. They could BE THE GENERATION THAT ENDS SMOKING, once and for all.

To do it, we tapped into the attitudes and behaviors of millennial internet culture, where doxing, pranking and hacking were endemic. We wanted to harness that behavior and put it to use for good, fostering the rebellious and edgy attitude that makes youth culture such a potent force. We knew that the brand would need to set the tone and do something epic and maybe a bit crazy to spark this revolution.

Personal experience told us that the decision to try cigarettes was largely influenced by peer pressure (no duh). And while it felt wrong to chastise teens smokers for their negative influence, we decided that celebrities who were routinely photographed (and posted online) smoking cigs were totally in bounds. We would send a massive shot across their bow by running ads that accused them of being UNPAID TOBACCO SPOKESPERSONS. The legal philosophy under-girding this potentially risky stunt could be summarized as:

We welcomed (and, in fact, instigated) a headline-driving legal battle with Justin Bieber (et. al.) that would completely validate our arugument and put a massive dent in this generations-old source of free marketing for the big tobacco companies.

72andSunny won the pitch, a whole bunch of awards, made a huge cultural impact and received a giant pat on the back from The Truth who thanked us for “getting them to think like revolutionaries once again”.

ESPN