When the Tobacco and Vapes Bill passed into law in April, it became one of the most significant pieces of public health legislation in UK history. Anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be legally sold tobacco anywhere in the UK. Cancer Research UK wanted to mark the moment in a way that felt human rather than procedural, and asked eight&four to help tell that story.
Our answer was the Cancer Research UK Café. Rather than leaning on statistics or speeches, we opened a space built around the most welcoming of British institutions, the café, and invited in the people this law is really about. Cancer survivors, those who had lost loved ones, the campaigners and researchers who fought for the change, and members of the first smoke-free generation all sat down to share their stories, unscripted and in their own words.
Creativepool sat down with our Creative Director, Christopher Slevin, to unpack how the campaign came together, from strategy through to the edit. He talks through the ideation process, led by Strategy Director Julius Judah and Audience Lead Annie Harte, and how six early ideas were narrowed down to the café concept because it put survivors at the heart of the story.
He also gets into the production side. With Royal Assent a moving target, Georgie Sheen and our Creative Director for Video, Henry Scriven, built a shoot that could flex around the date. The interviews were deliberately unscripted, working to key beats rather than lines, and shot on the Sony Venice with Canon Sumire primes to give the café a warm, observational feel, as if the camera had simply arrived mid-conversation.
The hardest part, Christopher says, was simply listening. The interviews were incredibly moving, and the team felt a real responsibility to do the stories justice.
As for why it matters: "Nothing would do more to prevent cancers in the UK than ending smoking."
Read the full interview on Creativepool. https://creativepool.com/magazine/inspiration/how-eightfour-turned-a-cafe-into-a-powerful-conversation-about-the-uks-smoke-free-future.34957
