15 Powerful Anti-Smoking Ads

15 Powerful Anti-Smoking Ads

Memorable anti-smoking campaigns that will inspire you to quit smoking.

Smoking Suicide

It’s called suicide because it’s your choice. Give up smoking today!

Smoking Suicide

Smoking Damages Your Lungs

Smoking Damages Your Lungs

Anti-Smoking Ceiling

Stop smoking before it is too late.

Anti-Smoking Ceiling

Get Unhooked

The average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes a year.

Get Unhooked

Smoker’s Teeth

Smokers Teeth

Secondhand Smoke Kills

Your cigarette is not only smoked by you. Think about your family…

Secondhand Smoke Kills

Smokers Never Win

Smokers Never Win

Cigarettes Killed More…

Smoking Kills More

Kiss My Ash

Kiss My Ash

Smoker’s Deathbed

Smokers Deathbed

Smoking Time Bomb

Every breath you take will eventually destroy your future. Quit Smoking!

Smoking Time Bomb

Smoking Leads to Cancer

Smoking Leads to Cancer

Smoking Kills

About 106,000 people in the UK die each year due to smoking. [via 1, 2]

Smoking Kills

Smoking is Murder

Smoking isn’t just suicide. It’s murder. Secondhand tobacco smoke causes many of the same diseases as direct smoking.

Smoking is Murder

For more cool ads, check out: 17 Creative Anti-Smoking Ads

  1. Vitaliy

    I’m more drawn to the imagery than the message…

  2. Dominic

    I think im going to quit smoking!

  3. AdmiralAnchovie

    these smoking ads are unfair to cigarette companies. smokers fully understand the dangers as they choose their lifestyle. i appreciate the art, however.

  4. kevin

    Very impressive

  5. woops

    The ceiling one made me chuckle. This art is cool, but I don’t agree with the message.

  6. jaqi mugo

    Whoa! These are powerful! And I don’t even smoke!!!

  7. forumlogic

    Addiction is so powerful that addicts cannot think rationally about their behaviour and the risks involved, hence the comments:

    “smokers fully understand the dangers as they choose their lifestyle” – AdmiralAnchovie
    (no smoker begins smoking really believing that the risks apply to them)

    *I don’t agree with the message” – woops
    (WHAT?… you don’t agree with attempts to save people from unnecessary pain, illness, disease, suffering, amputations, death, grieving … )

    By definition, addiction leads people to act in ways that are not in their own best interests.

  8. D-to-the-E-J

    well its evident forumlogic has a bit of a personal agenda… OBVIOUSLY peeps get why these ads exist, but thanks for the explanation. I think the point is, the messages are excessively strong and in your face. If your a smoker who is happy spending their money on smoking and loves smoking around their adult smoking buddies, who the dandelion testicles are this lot to try and stop em?!

    In fact, im going for a smoke right now!

  9. ??

    @AdmiralAnchovie
    I guess you are unaware of the fact that cigarette companies actually aim children between ages 13&15. And how is that fair?

  10. Deanna

    Thanks ForumLogic, my thoughts exactly.

  11. Jorgelina

    wow! Such powerful images! Some are really scary! I’m happy that I don’t smoke, never have and never will!

  12. Raads

    first of all i dont understand why they have to use naked people to the message accross. this is revealing stuff to kids at a very early age, like maybe kids who are 10 or under find this site interesting.
    other than that, these ads are extremly powerful, and could definitley make a change in this world, as Dominic pointed out.
    have fun quiting! xD

  13. Gert

    I think anyone complaining should go visit the pulmonology department of a hospital and check out the people on vents and who have smoked themselves to 30% lung capacity.

    They all think it wouldn’t happen to them too.

  14. Ferny

    Nine days, No Cigarettes!

  15. WHMR

    @AdmiralAnchovie

    “unfair to cigarette companies” ?

    Tobacco companies profit from selling a product that kills it’s customers. If the government wasn’t making such a huge profit as well, cigarettes would have been banned many years ago. They are nothing but corporate drug dealers. I’m pretty sure they’re doing all right for themselves, and they don’t need anyones pity. What’s next? Are you gonna tell us that the “Cigarettes Killed Moreā€¦” add isn’t fair to Hitler? Get your head checked man.

  16. mea

    so impressive.

  17. ajaykumay

    This should really change the coming generation

  18. dmitry

    the good pictures. But no result.

  19. Sarah Farrukh

    i really hate smoking

  20. cool dude brock

    These ad’s are so stupid they make me want to SMOKE MORE!! light em up boys.

  21. jakeafid

    well i dont smoke but the pictures would put me off it for deffanate but it would help if I could spell

  22. KD

    Any one else notice the lack of diversity of the people in these images?

  23. czayna14

    The one titled “Smoking leads to cancer” is from one of the previous seasons of America’s Next Top Model

  24. random

    @czayna14: oh yeah, they’res like only caucasion people, -.-

  25. Dude

    Love Smoking, Love the art work of the ads…..
    Agree with the ads…

  26. Momchil

    It is The Life that kills us all.
    I am not sure if sugar is less lethal than the cigarettes. Coca-cola, coffee +high levels of stress – deadly as hell! Every one can choose how to kill him self if not harming the people around! Otherwise we all will be robots!
    Who hasn’t got a vice – let’s throw a rock!

  27. Davdal100

    Scarying people does not motivate change.
    Smoking kills – we get it!
    These are just one part of the whole soultion. Where are the ads that focusing on helping people, while still being powerful?

  28. oyikk

    where’s my cigar ? ;p

  29. rico

    awwwww….that last one is soooooo sad omg,,,,,poor little guy.

  30. olga

    no smoker can even begin to imagine the pain he can and will inflict on himself and his loved ones. smoking KILLS. and you won’t die in your sleep. you will die by suffocating, trying to hold on to every second of life, trying to breathe but it will be too late for you.

  31. Marvin

    @Davdal100 is right!!!
    EVERY SMOKER I’VE EVER KNOWN DESPERATELY LONGS TO QUIT! Help them do it and everyone wins. Ridicule & hate just breeds more of the same, it’s the golden rule.
    Since when did hate & ridicule ever cause people to make right choices? These attacks may make smoker haters feel righteous, but does it help people really quit, does it fix the problem?
    Addicts need freely chosen alternatives. If you want to change people, steer their thinking instead of opposing their lifestyles. ‘Forced change’ never works. IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO CHANGE, GIVE THEM ALTERNATIVES THEY’LL ACCEPT WILLINGLY.
    I quit a 25 yr chain smoking habit in under a week while using ecigarettes, and now I don’t need nicotine at all.

  32. Lisa

    I was a smoker for 30 years. 5 months now without cigarette. I cut down then stopped. I feel like a new lady in a different body, my skin was always so dry. One of the best things i have ever done.

  33. fdl

    very good

    I will print them for others

  34. Mad Mom

    What we really need is more testimonies like yours, Marvin and Lisa. The glamorous ads and the marketing to teenagers keep them blind to the destruction. Don’t anyone say the tobacco companies don’t market to children. They have to replace their dying customer base somehow, and what better way to renew that customer base than to hook kids? It is so addictive that a 50-year habit is almost guaranteed to keep the tobacco companies in business! To keep kids out of jail, parents sometimes take them to a jail. Maybe if kids/teenagers saw the ugly end of people gasping out their last few weeks of life due to smoking, they might not ever start.

  35. sev

    All this campaign is not about health, this is new kind of segregation, new way of dividing people to smart and stupid… we all are addicts – one to smoking another to the work… and everybody to life…

  36. emily and sydney

    we think these pictures are very artistic and hard hitting, we would like to see more of these around in the streets, to help more smokers stop and save there life, we would like to congratulate you on this sucess! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :)

  37. asdfghjkl

    @D-to-the-E-J
    “I think the point is, the messages are excessively strong and in your face. If your a smoker who is happy spending their money on smoking and loves smoking around their adult smoking buddies, who the dandelion testicles are this lot to try and stop em?!”

    It would be good if smokers are the only ones who suffer the consequences of their addiction (for if that is the case, let them kill themselves), but that is not the case. Everyone who breathes the smoke they puff out suffer too, even if they themselves don’t smoke. You might be aware that you’re killing yourself, but I hope you smokers keep in mind that you’re also killing the people around you.

  38. angel

    very scary photos but i hope they help people quitt

  39. no name

    what a racism against smokers!!why you guys try to be the saviors of smokers?I can’t understand the point…

  40. sana

    i like these ads!
    impressive!

  41. Robyn

    For an individual like myself that is in the midst of the struggle of quitting these certainly help.

  42. Skylar

    I’m a smoker and after seeing some of these photos I wounder to myself WHY. I have been slowly slowing down on how many I smoke which is good. But these photos have me really thinkning about my choose.

  43. kandhaswamy.m

    anti-smoking ceiling is very nice.

  44. eva

    Has anybody thought about why former smokers become the most fanatic anti-smokers? I think they know better that either of us (smokers or no smokers)!

    And something else: smoking (literally) stinks!

    (I think the ashtray-mouth speaks for itself)

  45. hannah

    i totally agree the one with the adults smoking infont of the child really annoys me because i know people who do that its like they wont give up for there own kids sake!Also it damages the other person more than your self you are killing them. thats all i have to say.-_-

  46. Happy Sarah Tonin

    I am an addict. I am desperately trying to quit.
    I started young. It was part of very acceptable culture.
    I am now 51. I look a lot older.
    My teeth are ruined.
    My skin is ruined.
    My self esteem is rock bottom.
    I hate weakness but I am weak.
    I hate dirt but I feel unclean.
    I am proud but am shamed by my habits.
    I am principled but feel immoral because I am hurting those around me.
    I am sociable but feel isolated, a pariah.
    That’s what the smoking culture does for me. That’s what the new ‘live healthy, look great’ modern day culture impresses upon me.
    Smokers never win.
    It seems the only time a quitter is seen as ‘STRONG’ is when they give up an addiction. Only fellow addicts will understand the strength it takes.
    Artists suffer for their art….so do smokers.
    I’m quitting……at least at this moment I am.

  47. Mr. Frost

    Two precursors:

    1. I hate smoking (always have and have never smoked)
    2. The artwork is great.

    HOWEVER, the irony of your Hitler poster is not lost on me. Here you are, comparing decent folk who happen to smoke to Hitler. You are using the very same dehumanisation techniques that Hitler used – the message is disgraceful.

    IF, as you ascertain the smokers are addicited and have no choice, then the dehumanisation is even worse.

    It is also worth noting that it has only really become socially unacceptable to smoke over the past decade, so many of those ‘addicts’ would have started at a time when it was accepted as a social norm.

  48. Dino

    Kiss my Ash and Smoking is Murder are more powerful than other O.o its disgusting to see
    i really like all of ads, its good
    and im happy i never smoke. all of my family r smoking :l

  49. Kentessa

    These ads are not unfair to cigarette companies. Apparently the companies care nothing of the well being of their buyers. The ads are truthful and that is all that matters. Cigarette smoking is an addiction, not fair to the ones who made an unwise decision to pick one up. and what about the people from the 50s, who were not aware of the dreadful habit? Cigarette companies work for the government to bring profit. they profit off killing us. they win by eliminating the population (which saves money) and collecting our money to do so.

  50. Andrew

    its funny the ad with the mouth and has cigarettes as teeth, have the cigarettes as marlboros, its funny to think that the cigarette companies would advertise in an antismoking ad, thats a mind twist right there.

  51. Robert

    “they win by eliminating the population (which saves money) and collecting our money to do so.”

    @kentessa

    That’s technically not true. If you take into consideration the HUGE medical costs associated with smoking, which usually involves lengthy treatments and chronic conditions, the cost is massive.

    Personally I think these ads are dehumanizing. Could you imagine the uproar if there was campaign against obesity that utilized the same vicious, self-hating imagery? That impotent self-righteous anger you smoker-haters feel really does nothing to advance your argument beyond an audience that was already inclined to agree with you anyways.

  52. WOLFGANG GLAUSERHAUGEN

    PEOPLE WHO SMOKE, DRINK, AND DO DRUGS SHOWS THAT THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT THEMSELVES OR OTHERS!!!

  53. Jimmer

    I’m reading this with my spit cup next to me. I cough up so much bloody mucus that I was going through a box of tissues a day so I switched to a spit cup. It ain’t pretty. My voice is shot too from coughing. I have no job no money and no insurance. I wonder at what point the pain will become too much and what I’ll do.

    Quit now!

  54. tony

    i am a lonely person with a degrading dead end job.i have no wife, no kids, no dog and no qualifications.i am miserable and no one cares. i am what is called in the popular sense “a loser” and there are millions more just like me pumping your gas and serving your burgers for minimum wage.
    smoking is hard to quit when your miserable.
    drinking is hard to quit when your sad.
    pot is hard to quit when your angry and stressed and cant sleep.

    soft drugs are used by unhappy people.
    these ads make us feel worse.
    do the math

    so now I’m stood here, a small cog in a big machine lubricated with the blood of the worker, depressed, a man Ive never met before opens a pack of cigarettes, i stare hungrily and he offers me one. for a few minuets we share a silent bond of camaraderie and all the stress and frustration melts away.

    society has a few problems
    these ads concentrate of the effect rather than the cause.

  55. P

    Those ads never did it for me, if you want to stop
    smoking, read Alan Carr’s “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking”! As he says in his book, “No one ever started smoking thinking they would smoke for the entire life”
    every smoker wants to stop, but it is an addiction, this book helps to deprogram your mind so you can STOP.
    Happy reading!

  56. Flight

    Good grief. When did we as a society decide that ‘freedom to choose’ only applies to the freedom to choose what WE decide is right? A grown adult can make his own decisions, and society has no business butting in (no pun intended). If you slather the entire argument by saying we as a society in general PAY for the damages caused by your personal decisions, then that creates a green light for “society” to make ALL your decisions for you under the guise of “we all pay for your stupidity so screw you.” Cigarette smokers pay a TON of taxes for using the product; taxes that society would scream bloody murder over if they were suddenly to go away and had to be made up by the holier-than-thou types who are perfect in every way. Smokers are made to feel inferior, filthy, social pariahs, and are inconvenienced in every manner, shape and form. Enough! You don’t want to smoke? Don’t. You want to smoke? Light ’em up. We used to say “it’s a free country.” I don’t hear that sentiment mentioned anymore.

  57. farhana

    Mr frost, you do realise the ‘Hitler ad’ isn’t comparing the smokers to Hitler? They are comparing Hitler to Cigarettes or maybe even cigarette companies for being the Killer. In this case, smokers are likened to the holocaust VICTIMS since they are the ones being killed. Tragic misreading on your part.

  58. Sammy L

    In response to the first and last advertisement illustrating the “Suffocating Child Advertisement”…

    Through the image of the suffocating child, the anti-smoking advertisement effectively shocks its audience by showing the harmfulness of secondhand smoking through the association of guilt and terror.

    I believe that clever composition of this advertisement tied together with the slogan “Smoking isn’t just suicide, it’s murder” helps shock smokers, and even potential smokers into the harms of smoking by linking the act of smoking to suicide and murder simultaneously . This is a very thought provoking, powerful and effective advertisement in my opinion.

  59. max

    my dad smoked for 52 years and stopped for 20 years. He died with a growing ulcer on his leg – gangrene on his foot – poor circulation – multiple operations – hoping he would recover. The writing is clear – smoke and your death will not be fast or pretty. Even more – those who love you get to watch. Give up smoking.

  60. Paul

    The sad part about it is that most everyone who smokes is under the delusion that ” it just can’t happen to me ” bad things like cancer, emphysema,heart attack and so on just can’t happen to me . That kind of stuff only happens to the other guy . Until one day it turns out that they are the other guy . Then they wake up and say ” HUH “

  61. Brad Paige

    I recently quit again for good this time!
    “The Easy Way To Quit Smoking” by Allen Carr is genius and makes you feel great about making a positive change in your life!
    The time is now! Make it Happen!
    Good luck and God Bless!

  62. Jimmy Allen`

    What magazine is the last ad in?

Subscribe via RSS or Twitter