Health Promotion Board creates 'Idiots guide to shisha'

The campaign, developed by Ogilvy, includes a nine-minute YouTube video that gives viewers a sarcasm-laden step-by-step guide to ‘getting the most out of your shisha’.

The video presenter says, “It’s all pretty straightforward but I’m going to give you a few extra tips to make sure you do the most damage in your next session. You want to make sure everything is working right so you get the most damage to your body.”

Sonal Narain, a planner at Ogilvy, said the video was created as a result of the HPB’s concerns about the increasing culture of shisha and the misconception that it is a harmless activity.

She said the idea was to avoid a ‘preachy campaign’ and instead inform viewers in an engaging and humourous way to empower them to make their own decisions.

Narain said, “There are DIY-style videos on YouTube for everything on the planet… and ‘An idiots guide’ is often the first thing you turn to when you are looking to find out information. That’s why we adopted this approach.”