Creativeland Asia creates a smoking intervention #BreakTheSmokeBreak for Godrej aer

On World No Tobacco Day, everyone floods social media with advice on how people should quit smoking. But Godrej aer decided to do something more disruptive and effective.

It identified that the right time for a smoking intervention is when the person takes the smoke break. So, as an initiative linked to its musk.after.smoke fragrance, Godrej aer decided to #BreakTheSmokeBreak and surprise smokers with fake “urgent” phone calls (like, “Your mom is at the reception. Come back!” and “Free biryani in office. Come quickly.”)

The campaign began on Facebook and Twitter, with Godrej aer asking users to share details of friends who smoke, on breakthesmokebreak.godrejaer.com. They could then pick an “urgent” message relevant to their friend and click ‘Call’ during the friend’s smoke break. After which, a call would be placed immediately, breaking the smoke break.

The activity saw over 5200+ phone calls made in just a day. Thus, Godrej aer helped disrupt the smoking habit. One fake call at a time.

On the campaign launch, Kapil Dev Pillai, Head Marketing, GCPL said, “Godrej aer is the undisputed market leader in home and car fragrances. On this “World No Tobacco Day”, we created the #BreakTheSmokeBreak campaign, based on the behavioural insight that a smoke break can be delayed or cut-out completely when called out for urgency. This insight was beautifully crafted in the quirky Godrej aer tonality by our creative agency, Creativeland Asia.

However for the people who compulsively have to smoke, we do have the Godrej aer musk.after.smoke variant, which neutralizes the smell of smoke. While it does so, we strongly wish people don’t smoke at all.”

Anu Joseph, Chief Creative Officer, Creativeland Asia, added, “To get a smoker to quit smoking is the toughest thing to do. So, we thought of the next best thing. #BreakTheSmokeBreak. We’ve all done it occasionally to help people we care for. Now, Godrej aer helps us do it in a more fun, credible manner. And the numbers show its working.”