Mumbai: Advertising trainees bag top prize in tobacco and heart disease campaign

Imaan Surve and Sripriya Ganesh

City duo Sripriya Ganesh, 23, and Imaan Surve, 21, both creative trainees at an advertising agency, have won the top prize in the print ad competition section of the Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) campaign, for their creative on 'Tobacco and Heart Disease.'

Ganesh and Surve's winning
visual underscores their belief that simplicity makes a powerful statement. It is of the heart muscle with cigarette butts sticking out of it, with accompanying copy that reads: 'Smoking chokes your heart. Every cigarette you smoke clogs your arteries, which reduces blood supply and the amount of oxygen available throughout your body, increasing the risk of heart disease'.

Ganesh said, "When you talk about the harm that cigarettes do to cardiovascular health, you are talking about something that is not apparent on the outside. We spent some time trying to get the right insight in order to translate it to the work. We have kept the copy simple and decided not to over think this. We also wanted to desist from being preachy."

Ganesh and Surve's creative that won first prize

For Surve, "As young trainees, we are very enthusiastic about getting our work out there. We wanted to make a statement, but we had to ensure there was no overkill. Our work was all about getting people's attention and telling everything about tobacco and how it affects the heart conceptually and medically through the visual and short copy."

Tough jury
For the competition, CPAA had invited ad agencies and college students to participate. It received 385 entries in the print ad competition category from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Pune.

From those, 50 entries were short listed and the three best ads were selected by the jury members comprising adman Piyush Pandey, Dr P C Gupta of Healis Sekhsaria institute of public health, Dr Anil Damle, and actor Vivek Oberoi, brand ambassador of CPAA. Among the parameters Surve-Ganesh were scored on, were sticking to the theme, factual accuracy of content and creativity.

Soon on a billboard
The selected ads will be displayed on hoardings, bus shelters and awareness campaign across the city and uploaded on social media post May 30. Anita Peter, executive director, CPAA said, "The youth is our focus, because tobacco use among them is a major public health problem." Peter claimed novel marketing and flavours are used as bait for first-time smokers, "That is why we try to get the youth involved in such competitions," she concluded.

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