Butts For Dinner Honey?
Objective
The Uncomfortable Truth
Deliverables
Poster Series
Billboard
Website
Social Issue Campaign
Butts For Dinner Honey? is a fictional campaign to expose the broad impact of improper disposal of cigarette butts. By looking at the issue in a creative, somewhat sarcastic manner, the viewer will pause for a moment to reflect, maybe thinking they saw incorrectly at first.
This project involved developing a triptych poster series, website and billboard to engage viewers on multiple levels.
Concept Execution
The concept for the campaign was inspired by the age-old question, “what’s for dinner honey?”. It was important to create a passionate response that would rally smokers and non-smokers. Cigarette butts are on the ground and in the soil that strains our water that feeds the plants, that grows the food, that is consumed by animals and humans. The filter is extremely slow to break down, but the items within it are not. This campaign approaches the topic as part of a recipe for our daily food and how the toxins leach into the foods we eat. It is a bit grotesque, but has to hit a nerve in order to get attention and move the viewer to take action.
The color palette was chosen directly from cigarette butts to immerse the viewer and emphasize the dark subject matter. Placing the butts directly in a meal symbolizes the toxins that bleed into our food sources. Including dinner and dessert aids in showing the breadth of the issue. The images were manipulated to appear as cigarette ash to reinforce the concept that toxins are secretly simmering within our daily nourishment.
Resources
“Why Are Cigarette Butts the Most Littered Item on Earth?” Truth Initiative, Truth Initiative, 20 Apr. 2018, https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/harmful-effects-tobacco/why-are-cigarette-butts-most-littered-item-earth#:~:text=Even%20under%20optimal%20conditions%2C%20it,land%2C%20water%20and%20air%20pollution.
Root, Tik. “Cigarette Butts Are Toxic Plastic Pollution. Should They Be Banned?” Environment, National Geographic, 3 May 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/cigarettes-story-of-plastic.
Martin, Terry. “Shocking Global Cigarette Filter Litter Facts.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 21 Jan. 2020, https://www.verywellmind.com/world-cigarette-litter-facts-that-will-shock-you-2824735.
Register, Kathleen M. “Cigarette Butts as Litter—Toxic as Well as Ugly.” Buttlitter.gif, Cigarette Butt Litter, http://www.longwood.edu/cleanva/ciglitterarticle.htm.
“Did You Know?” Did You Know? | University Health Services, UC Berkeley, https://uhs.berkeley.edu/tobaccofacts#:~:text=Facts%20about%20Cigarette%20Butts%20and%20Smoke&text=Most%20cigarette%20filters%2C%20the%20part,to%2010%20years%20to%20decompose!