And the winner is ...
February 22, 2012
Using black-and-white video and dark chocolate syrup to simulate the grim reality of smoking, three students at Suncoast Polytechnical High School in Sarasota, Florida, won the Grand Prize in this year’s Kick Butts Day PSA contest.
Congrats to Jennifer Holman, Ariel Pennetti and Joann Panizzo, who teamed up to create the 30-second spot as a class project in their Health and PE class. The girls brainstormed for one class period, and came up with the idea of depicting themselves vomiting up gooey black liquids to represent the stew of poisons that enter the body whenever cigarettes are smoked. The narrator notes that cigarettes contain thousands of chemicals – including at least 69 that cause cancer.
Check it out:
Meanwhile, middle-school students in an after-school arts program sponsored by the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services in Brooklyn, took a lighter approach to produce the second-place winner – a claymation video set to hip-hop music that explains the serious health harms from smoking.
Have a look:
This year’s Kick Butts Day PSA contest drew 112 entries from around the country and even a military base in Germany.
Feeling inspired by these powerful PSAs? Make your own for Kick Butts Day on March 21. Anyone can submit a public service announcement to a local television or radio station. Find out more about how to make your own creative and convincing PSA.
And remember, Kick Butts Day is less than a month away! Kick Butts Day is organized by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and sponsored by the United Health Foundation.