Faced with the unique challenge of reaching a “hard-to-reach” audience with an important, live-saving message, we decided to dig deeper and travel down a different path.  Our research indicated that traditional smoking cessation messaging approaches struggle to connect with the  18- to-29-year-old African American audience, and that these methods had little, if any, long-lasting effect. We also learned that any message that did not also address the reason most people in this audience segment start smoking – stress in their daily lives – could not effectively communicate the importance of quitting because such messaging would come across as being disingenuous, too institutional and far too fleeting.  

 Our challenge was to develop both a message and a method of delivery that would be truly authentic, in order to resonate with the intended audience. In our minds, it was the only way to capture this audience’s attention, hold it and motivate them to act.  

So we created Breathing Room, an innovative web-based documentary that follows four real people from different backgrounds, each with their own unique life story; yet all four sharing one common goal: to quit smoking. The result is an intimate “all access” look at not only the difficult task of quitting smoking, but also at how the decision to quit smoking affects their lives and those around them. With an emphasis on maintaining the authenticity of the campaign through media, our marketing strategy includes geo-targeted mass media, social media and community-based communication channels.

Breathing Room is set to debut in 2010.