Europe's teenagers focus for anti-smoking drive

A new pan-European campaign to prevent smoking among teenagers airs this week. Moby, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Liberty X star in what is the biggest testimonial campaign to be implemented in Europe.

Initiated by Mr David Byrne, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, the German-made advertisements will appear here in a two-week burst on Network 2 and in cinemas starting this week. The overall media budget for all 15 countries is €1.465 million.

The creative strategy is different from the current Department of Health anti-smoking campaign because it is attempting to establish a cool streetwise image for not smoking. The Irish campaign devised for the Government by QMP Darcy features a threatening character called Nico and shows the negative effects of smoking. "This is different to the traditional approach in that we're trying to give not-smoking a cool modern image," says Mr Harald Zulauf, managing director of Media Consulta, the German agency selected for the campaign after a Europe-wide pitch that attracted 40 agencies.

"By using MTV and pop stars that have a high degree of credibility among young people we are penetrating the tobacco industry's own advertising environment." None of the pop stars was paid a fee and the only constraint facing Mr Zalouf was to ensure that the stars he picked were themselves non-smokers.

The television advertisement will be shown on 30 national stations across the 15 member-states as well as on MTV. It is the second part of a three-year €6 million EU non-smoking campaign aimed at adolescents. About €4.3 million of that will be spent on media and part of the planning strategy was to establish partnerships with the various media organisations so that paid air time was matched with sponsored air time.

The line running through the campaign is "feel free to say no" and it is not translated into any local languages. "English is the language of youth marketing in Europe," says Mr Zalouf, "Nike and Adidas don't translate their slogans; if we did our target market wouldn't consider the advertising to be modern or relevant to them."

The next phase of the campaign is particularly ambitious. Media Consulta has commissioned Lou Pearlman, producer of Backstreet Boys and 'NSYNC, to produce a song that Harald Zulauf will try to get into the European charts.

Given the diversity of musical taste across Europe, that sounds like a particularly difficult task. The campaign will appear in press advertisements across the EU next March, but although the language does not have to be changed, the pop stars featured certainly do. So while Moby will be in Hot Press, euro pop stars such as Keti Garbi, David Charvet and Tiziano Ferro will be in the Greek, French and Italian pop press.