A classic of this sort ran in London last summer, posters that looked like an X-ray of a smoker's lungs that were placed over outdoor ashtrays. The lung portion of the poster was really a clear window, and looking in one could see the ashtray filling up with butts and ashes as people finished their cigarettes, creating a ghastly visual image of what one's lungs must look like after years of smoking.

A harsh message indeed. And that's the rub. Smokers already know smoking is a serious health risk.

So a new campaign for the same group, QUIT, is taking the entirely opposite approach. It is using the same venue, the outdoor ashtray, but the message is really a collection of conversations just long enough to be read while puffing down a smoke, maybe five minutes.

They are words on a page that could be dialogue from a novel.

And they are easy to read because the ashtrays, called Adbins, are mounted on walls, with the poster in a frame at eye level.

One conversation has an elderly couple getting engaged, another has an aging woman discovering a book she wrote in her youth will be published. Another is about a man becoming a grandfather.

The tagline: Life. It’s worth sticking around for.

"Our idea was to imagine the wonderful, life-changing things that can happen later in life," says Ant Melder, creative group head at Saatchi & Saatchi X, which created the campaign.

"Many smokers see quitting as giving up something, losing out on something. We wanted to get them to see quitting smoking is a massively positive thing to do, and by not quitting they could have much more to lose."

Why the simple text?

In these fast-paced technology-driven times, most people usually don't have the spare minutes to stop and read a piece of long copy. The exception is that person who ducks out of work for a quick smoke and a moment's reflection.

"The ashtrays are the perfect media because they address smokers at ‘point-of-puff,’ when they have five minutes to read the copy, consider the message and, potentially, take out their mobile phone and call the Quitline," he says.

The out-of-home campaign launched on Dec. 18 and will run through January in London. The agency’s next goal is to secure more funding so the campaign can be rolled out nationwide.