New Anti-Smoking PSA May Be Cool, But Is It Effective? Updated May 6, 2010 7:45am

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By Jordan Heller

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — A new anti-smoking ad featuring beatbox legend Kenny Muhammad performing in Washington Square Park is garnering plenty of hits around the Internet - but critics wonder if the YouTube video’s intended message has gotten lost in all the smoke.

“Smoking Skills” features various hip-looking New Yorkers performing a number of cigarette-related tricks—including smoke rings, the hand-to-mouth flip, and the one-handed lighting of a match. Muhammad’s performance is then cut short by a series of distorted smoker coughs. Finally, the first “S” from the title word “Skills” is dropped.

The Rapup culture blog calls it the “Coolest Anti-Smoking Ad Ever,” but complains that the images of people enjoying their cigarettes appear to “extol the same vice [the ad’s] attempting to condemn.”

Similarly, J. David Goodman of The New York Times lauded the ad for its creativity, but said the PSA’s effectiveness was “an open question.”

As for the more conventional, message-obvious anti-smoking PSAs, Michael Krivicka, the director and creator of “Smoking Skills,” says they’re not effective either, and are seldom watched all the way through.

“So I flipped every anti-smoking approach 180 degrees, and created something that looks cool and appeals to today’s MTV generation,” Krivicka told DNAinfo. “It gets people’s attention. It gets them talking.

“Will it make them stop?” Krivicka added. “No, probably not. But neither will the other ads, because every smoker immediately turns away. My ad is the one that they watch all the way through.”