Do Not Adapt to Air Pollution – Clean Air Asia launches Hairy Nose Campaign

5 December 2012 – Seven out ten cities in Asia don’t meet the most basic World Health Organization air quality target for particulate pollution (PM10). 800,000 out a total 1.3 million people dying prematurely each year from air pollution are from Asia and experts agree that this number will double in the coming years if no effective action is being taken to address urban air pollution in Asia.

Clean Air Asia, the leading regional organization on air quality in Asia has promoted better air quality in the region for the last 10 years and is now launching a grass roots campaign to break through the resignation among large groups of the population that air pollution is a fact of life that can’t be changed. “People look at air pollution like the weather. You complain about it but you can not solve it”, said Sophie Punte, the Executive Director of Clean Air Asia. “We see that people start wearing masks or buy air filters for their houses and cars, and move away from heavily polluted areas if they can afford it, in short they are adapting to air pollution rather than doing something about it. We see that there is increasing political will in Asia to address air pollution but without broad based popular support such political will can not succeed”.

The campaign was developed by BBDO Guerrero / Proximity Philippines with creative teams from across the BBDO network, whose Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, David Guerrero, says: “We were excited to partner with Clean Air Asia on this issue because air pollution touches all of us every day in our daily lives. We decided to use humor to explain to people across the region that there is no need to feel jaded or powerless.”

The Hairy Nose campaign will be launched at the three-day Better Air Quality (BAQ) 2012 conference, organized by Clean Air Asia, the Hong Kong SAR Environmental Protection Department and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which will kick off on December 5, 2012 in Hong Kong. The campaign which consists of a online video, a micro website where people can check pollution levels in their city and select their own nose hair styles will be rolled out after BAQ 2012 to a number of Asian countries where Clean Air Asia has regional offices and networks including China, India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Vietnam