Smoke Free - Not Our Future: Kiss Off

A New Zealand government organisation has employed an innovative approach to social marketing by using a viral online kissing game to denormalise smoking amongst teenagers. The Health Sponsorship Council (HSC) via Resn Wellington has enjoyed significant success with the viral online game that within only two weeks has been played by over two million people. Resn an interactive agency based in Wellington, New Zealand developed the idea for the game titled 'Kiss Off' when their client HSC, approached them about using a viral online game to attract the attention of teenagers. The game idea was to make teenagers consider the negative social effects of smoking without forcing traditional advertising messages at a demographic who typically are resistant to this style of message delivery. Research suggested teenagers are more worried about the effect smoking may have on their personal image than the negative health effects that smoking tobacco causes. The challenge facing Resn was to come up with a game that was truly viral in nature and would generate the interest of the teenage demographic. Resn “virally seeded” the game to Flash gaming websites that are frequented by teenagers wanting to play free online games. The game has also been developed and integrated as a Facebook, Bebo and MySpace application so the user may play the game within these various social networking websites. The game involves a character avoiding smokers to reach an attractive non-smoking kissing companion. The user is then tested on different kissing skills that are presented on a kissing profile at the end of the game. The user’s personalised kissing profile can be sent via email to a friend or can then be added to the user’s personal social networking pages.