The Style of Smoking - Anticancer Society of Venezuela | Clapboard Ad Archive

The Style of Smoking from the Anticancer Society of Venezuela, developed by DLB Group with Xtreme Picture, stands out as a sharply conceived public service campaign that surgically reframes the cultural myth of smoking as an emblem of style—a myth that persists across generations and permeates the market. Released in 2017 and targeted squarely at Venezuelan youth and adults who have yet to take up the habit, the campaign pivots on the insight that as many as 70% of smokers begin because they equate tobacco with sophistication and self-expression, a belief quietly baked into popular imagery and peer rituals seen throughout Latin America and far beyond. Rather than trafficking familiar warnings about disease or physical ruin, the film leans into the semiotics of allure, carefully staging the act of lighting and inhaling a cigar as a proxy for confidence and flair, only to disrupt this seductive tableau with a statistical sledgehammer: 70% of those seduced by the aura of smoking will ultimately confront cancer as a direct byproduct of the very act they believed conferred distinction. This creative choice is an archetype of what Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#3—Symbolize the Problem, embracing a visual and thematic strategy that explores the gap between socially constructed meaning and harsh epidemiological reality. Through this symbolic approach, the Anticancer Society campaign resists the didacticism that often plagues anti-smoking work, instead layering its narrative with irony and psychological tension—none of which is undercut by overt moralising or trauma imagery, making it accessible to audiences who may otherwise tune out louder or more graphic appeals. The collaboration with DLB Group demonstrates a nuanced understanding of how to map social attitudes onto behavior change efforts, shifting the conversation from mere hazard awareness to a broader inquiry: what does it mean when personal branding is built on self-harm? The single asset film medium, deployed with restraint, pulls viewers into a critique on the downside of conformity masquerading as individual expression, and in so doing, strives to register both intellectual and emotional impact. The campaign earns 64/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. The Style of Smoking signals a critical evolution for public interest advertising in the region, since it puts prevailing consumer fantasies under the microscope rather than repeating the old cautionary tropes.