The California Tobacco Prevention Program is putting Big Tobacco on blast, noting the industry is living in a “Fantasyland” for downplaying the harm that vaping inflicts on bodies.

“Big Tobacco’s Fantasyland” is a statewide OOH and TV campaign that debunks the misinformation pushed by the tobacco industry around vaping. Namely, that it is a safer alternative to cigarette smoking.

Outdoor ads from Duncan Channon get right to the point. “In Big Tobacco’s Fantasyland, vaping nicotine is soothing. If soothing means amplifying anxiety and depression” reads one ad. Another notes that “vaping is anti-aging because you’re more likely to die younger from a stroke.”

A TV spot, directed by Emmanuel Adjei, opens with to of Chopin’s “Nocturne Op.9, No.2.” It presents a dreamlike hotel check-in scenario, centered around a high-end vape pen, and slams the cig industry in no uncertain terms.

Duncan Channon has been working with the CTPP since 2014. This brief aims to “expose the tobacco industry’s current subversive, manipulative, and deceitful strategies to prey on Californians and make it clear that their solution is no solution,” per the agency.

Ads target 18- to 54-year-olds with an emphasis on parents and young adults. They are running in high traffic areas that include California landmarks like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sofi Stadium and Golden 1 Center.

“When looking at Big Tobacco’s shameless attempt at rebranding themselves as champions of public health, we couldn’t shake the feeling that they are living in a completely different reality,” an agency spokesperson tells Muse. “It was this bizarro reality that we wanted to bring to life. We thought, ‘OK let’s go directly into this world they are trying to create and expose it as the dangerous place it is.”

CREDITS

AGENCY: DUNCAN CHANNON
Creative
ECD/Creative Director: Anne Elisco-Lemme
Sr. Writer: Jeff Phungglan
Sr. Art Director: Xavier Rivera
Sr. Designer: Darlene Gibson
Sr. Designer: Shannon Burns

Strategy
Director of Brand Strategy: Kelleen Peckham
Associate Director of Brand Strategy: Mel Gray
Content Strategist: Mariya Manuel

Account Management
Managing Director: Kumi Croom
Associate Account Director: Valerie Nerio
Associate Account Director: Davis Wolfe
Account Supervisor: Vida Thaxton

Project Management
Associate Director, Project Management: Bryan Moore
Project Manager: Kevin Reza

Media planning + analytics
Group Director, Media + Analytics: Maddy Robinson
Associate Director, Media + Analytics: Sally Lockwood
Planner, Media + Analytics: Artemis Mansur
Associate Planner, Media + Analytics: Sara Wiler
Director, Digital + Analytics: Rob Griffin
Senior Analyst, Media + Analytics: Ranjani Ravirajan
Senior Analyst, Media + Analytics: Paul Callaway
Associate Director of Paid Social: Eddie Gonzalez
Associate Director of Search: Kyle Rovinski
Senior Search Manager: Amira Kishak

Production
Senior Producer: Amanda Chaffin
Head of TV & content production: Keenan Hemje
Executive Producer: Rita Ribera Channon
Production Assistant: Star Baclay
Head of digital production: Eric Kozak
Manager of art production: Shaz Kuerschner
Business Manager: Tricia Krasneski

Studio
Production Artist: Phat Trieu

PRODUCTION
Production Company: The Directors Bureau
Director: Emmanuel Adjei
Managing Director: Hillary Rogers
Head of Production: Sarah Morrison
Executive Producer: Stephanie Bruni
Producer: Ash Marshall
Line Producer: Timory King
Director of Photography: Adam Newport-Berra
Production Designer: Dylan Kahn

Production Consultant: Streetlights

POST PRODUCTION
Edit House: Cabin Edit
Editor: Taylor Tracy Walsh 
Assistant Editor: Allyson Nicholson
Executive Producer: Adam Becht
Executive Sales, West Coast: Britt Carson
Sr. Producer: Lynne Mannino

VFX House: Mathematic
VFX Supervisor: Dan Karp
VFX Coordinator: Ipek Kahraman
Managing Director: Hadi Dahrouge
Post Producer: Matthew Allen

Telecine: Trafik
Colorist: Daniel du Vue
Producer: Julia King, Hugh Copeland

Audio Mix: Tone11
Sound Design: Interlude Sounds / Tone11
Post Production Audio Producer: Interlude: Daniel Balk, Tone11: Krista Herzog

MUSIC
Music Company: Interlude Sounds
Performed by: James William Blades
Written by: James William Blades

PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographer/Videographer: Raul Romo
Photo Producer: Timory King
Photo Producer: Cecilia Soghikian
Art Buyer: Shaz Kuerschner
Post Production: DMAX Imaging

CLIENT
Media & Communications Section Chief: Julie Lautsch
Media Unit Chief: Jennifer Garcia
Media & Communications Senior Strategist: Erin Walsh
Media & Communications Senior Financial Analyst: Sandra Soria
Media & Communications Strategist: Rais Tuluka
Media & Communications Specialist: Vikki Ueda
Communications Unit Chief: Frank Ruiz
Media & Communications Digital Strategist: Jennifer Biddle
Media & Communications Specialist: Holly Vannatta

Hispanic/Latino cultural partner: Acento
Asian cultural partner: APartnership
Website development partner: Beyond

“The tempo of America’s pastime and the tempo of island life are particularly in sync,” Duncan Channon creative director Parker Channon tells Muse. “Both have way less beats per minute than your average fare.”

That belief informs a new installment of the agency’s long-running “Dear Mainland” campaign for AB InBev’s Kona Brewing.

The brand’s beloved Hawaiian “bruddahs”—David Hekili Bell and Blake Brutus La Benz, who aren’t actually related—riff on baseball themes and more in the commercial lineup below:

A “relief pitcher” brimming with beer? Oh, bruddah!

“This is the first time we’ve created a TV spot that ties into baseball, though earlier campaigns have run during baseball telecasts,” Channon says. “Given that the plan was to heavy up the Major League Baseball buy, we saw a great opportunity to create a baseball-specific spot. So, we did.”

The goal, he says, has been “to move Kona from the smaller, increasingly crowded craft segment to the premium import category. So, we skip the hop-and-copper-kettle talk and provide the messaging these 21- to 49-year-olds need to put down that Corona or Heineken and pick up a Big Wave from Kona.”

Given our stressful and confusing times, the folksy, low-key schtick feels like a winning play, delivered in breezy, relaxed style by O Positive director Brian Billow. Owing to Covid safety protocols, however, the agency team rode the pine in San Francisco during filming last month on Oahu.

“To our great chagrin, we had to view the shoot remotely for the first time in seven years,” laments Channon. “You can imagine that going to Hawaii to shoot beer commercials is not exactly a hardship for anyone at the agency.”

We sure can, bruddah! (Too much?)

The spots will run in 25 regional markets across TV, digital and paid social media.

“How do you depict secondhand smoke exposure without it feeling like hyperbole?” asks Anne Elisco-Lemme, executive creative director at Duncan Channon, which devised the minute-long spot with Corner Shop director Sara Dunlop for the California Tobacco Control Program. “We knew we didn’t want massive smoke clouds engulfing people, or smoke trails seeking out unsuspecting people around corners. We needed a visual metaphor to represent the smoke.”

What’s more, “secondhand smoke isn’t just from cigarettes anymore,” she says. “The danger is coming from many new forms—so we needed the metaphor to tie all those sources together as a single threat. Why is it that a person might be upset to have someone smoking a cigarette next to them, but totally cool if someone is blowing a huge vape cloud into their face, just because it smells like mango?” 

Copywriter Andy Whalen and art director Adam Zash came up with the idea of using dark balloons because their appearance and movements are sinister and smoke-like. 

The work recalls an Instagram stunt from May, when the cast of IT: Chapter 2 posted images with mysterious red balloons lurking in the frame. Given the gravity of the health issue here, however—50 percent of Californians are exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke, and exposure from marijuana and vaping is way up—these “Dark Balloons” carry a far more urgent, unsettling message.

“If you watch closely, you’ll notice that some people are distracted or bothered by the balloons, and others aren’t,” Elisco-Lemme says. “For example, a mother with her young kids will try to get away from the balloons. And a waiter, trying to do his job, has to suffer through what seems like a wall of them. But a young boy in the outfield might actually become intrigued by the smell of a candy-flavored vape, so he’s drawn towards them.” 

Such reactions deepen the PSA’s compelling, bad-dream vibe. And since you were wondering, the team used real balloons throughout. Director Sara Dunlop insisted on practical effects to motivate genuine responses from the actors.

“The balloons were hard to work with when the wind kicked up,” Elisco-Lemme recalls. “And they didn’t always take direction well. Sara did a lot of R&D with [VFX experts at] The Mill before the shoot—lots of sophisticated rigging and wires” came into play.

The youthful voiceover—”It drifts into our lives, exposing us to a risk we never asked for”—was performed by the 13-year-old daughter of a Duncan Channon creative staffer. 

“We asked her to do a read for us early on, just to see what a child’s voice did to the overall feeling of the spot,” says Elisco-Lemme. “She’s a pretty wise kid—kind of an old soul, actually—it just seemed to click. There was something so compelling about her delivering this message—a child seeing something that the adults were missing.”

She adds: “You have to think about it differently when your talent is not only a kid, but a kid who’s never been in a recording studio before. We’d say things like, ‘Pretend you are telling your brother a story that he doesn’t know will end up scaring him.’ And she’d say, ‘He doesn’t really scare easily.’ Then you have to try another tactic: ‘OK, read it like you are really, really bored.'”

Her ethereal, and indeed, at times disinterested-sounding narration arrives toward the end, elevating the PSA’s bad-dream atmosphere.

CREDITS

CTCP – ‘Dark Balloons’

Production Company – The Corner Shop 
Director – Sara Dunlop
Founder, Executive Producer – Anna Hashmi 
Head of Production: Jessica Miller 
Producer – Greg Haggart
D.O.P – Michael Gioulakis
Production Designer – Brock Houghton

Client: CTCP
Media & Communication: Valerie Quinn
Public Relations Manager: Frank Ruiz
Senior Financial Analyst: Amelia Anderson
Advertising Specialist: Cortney Ceccato

Agency: Duncan Channon
Executive Creative Director: Anne Elisco-Lemme
Senior Art Director: Adam Zash
Senior Copywriter: Andy Whalen
Senior Producer: Rita Ribera Channon

Agency: ACENTO – Hispanic Market
Producer: Brian Reyes
Art Director: Luis Galvan
Senior Copywriter: Randy Cantu
Creative Director: Amanda Pizzaro

Editorial : Work Editorial 
Editor: Bill Smedley
Executive Producer: Marlo Baird
Producer: Brandee Probasco

VFX: The Mill
Executive Producer: Fawn Fletcher
VFX Supervisor, 2D Lead: Adam Lambert
Art Director: Clarise Chin
Coordinator: Vanessa Yee