Unfiltered: Big Tobacco’s Exploitation of Black America

Way to Quit and Project Success challenged us to create a community activation that would expose the history of targeted tobacco marketing toward Black communities and spark conversation around its lasting impact.

To ensure authenticity, we partnered with ouRRvoice, our Black employee resource group, who helped shape the creative direction and bring lived experience into the work. Their perspective revealed a deeper insight: many of these marketing tactics had become so normalized that they often went unexamined.

The result was Unfiltered, an immersive exhibit built from decades of real tobacco advertising, including print, magazine, and broadcast campaigns. The experience culminated in reimagined ads that used dark humor and exaggeration to turn the industry’s own messaging back on itself and prompt reflection.

The activation drove increased engagement with the 2024 Black and African American Health Needs Assessment and later expanded into a digital version and the website won a national award.