For the thousands of fans who showed up to tailgate at the big rivalry football game between the University of Florida and Florida State University in Tallahassee last weekend, there was a discomforting sight with an even more discomforting message.
Amid the crowds, dressed as others were in Gators or Seminoles gear and seated by coolers and the requisite grill, were six extremely thin figures, skeletally thin.
It was in fact a group of skeletons, propped up to look like revelers but looking very much like death, and that was exactly the point.
Their message, posted on a sign under the canopy behind them: “We lose too many fans each year to tobacco.”
The display was sponsored by Tobacco Free Florida, a state-sponsored anti-smoking campaign aimed at young people, and it came out of Tallahassee’s the zimmerman agency, after a lot of ideas were kicked around.
Rob Kerr, creative director at the agency, says he invited everyone, including janitors and receptionists, to come up with suggestions, and they came in by the hundreds. “I had three or four walls outside my office plastered with ideas,” Kerr says.
“The skeleton fans was an idea that came from one of our media guys.”
The goal of the campaign was to raise awareness of the 28,000 Floridians who die each year from smoking, and last Saturday's game, attended by 83,000, was chosen to kick it off.
Kerr says zimmerman plans to set up similar displays at other sporting events around the state leading up to Tobacco Free Florida week, which runs from Feb. 27 to March 6. Individual skeletons will also appear in the bleachers as fans at various events, including a Tampa Bay Lightning NHL game.
