Before Australia adopted some of the strictest smoking regulations in the world, advertising cigarettes was big business.

Ad agencies have long sought the clients with the biggest budgets — and from the 50s to the 70s, the clients with the biggest budgets were selling tobacco.

They set out, and succeeded, in convincing Australians that smoking was a suave, sexy and sophisticated thing to do.

Slim cigarettes were tailored for "the feminine hand". Craven was "the clean cigarette that's kind to your throat", and Benson and Hedges was for "when only the best would do".

But one campaign was so successful that it backfired — prompting the backlash that ultimately saw Australia ban tobacco advertising altogether.

'Let her rip, Boris old son'

By the early 1970s, there were already warning signs about the risks to consumers' health. But teenagers were a lucrative target market, and one brand in particular resonated: Winfield.

Allan Johnston, a new creative at Sydney agency Hertz-Walpole, was asked to come up with an idea for Winfield, then owned by the company Rothmans.

"We came up with this crazy idea to put Paul Hogan in a dinner suit and take the piss out of other cigarette ads," Johnston said.

On the day of the shoot none of the usual executives turned up. They were terrified and thought it was going to be a disaster.

Hogan arrived in his tuxedo. The Sydney Symphony orchestra was brought in. And in his ocker drawl Hogan began: "G'day. I've been asked to talk to ya, and being the suave, sophisticated man about town…"

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Australians loved it. Especially the kids. "It was brave — actually naïve," Johnston said.

After the first week on air, Rothmans chairman Sir Ronald Irish ordered that the "uncouth bloke" be taken off air, but was then reminded that the company were now selling a million sticks a day.

Not long after, Winfield overtook Marlboro as Australia's number one selling cigarette.

A success that backfired

The popularity of Paul Hogan and his Winfield ads among teenagers was a worrying development.

Winfield became their preferred brand, and Hogan's powerful resonance with kids saw them take up smoking at a growing rate.

Health campaigners and public sentiment were getting more vocal. The link between tobacco and lung disease could no longer be ignored.

By the mid 1970s, there was increasing pressure on the government to act.

The new Whitlam government pledged extra funds to state health departments, so they could engage in the very medium that had propelled these tobacco companies into peoples' lives in the first place. Anti-smoking television advertisements began.

Adman John Bevins was approached by the NSW Department of Health, and asked to come up with a hard-hitting anti-smoking ad that was to be trialled on the NSW North Coast.

The first thing he wanted to know was why cigarettes were so bad. He was put in touch with public health expert Garry Egger, who told him: "The lung is like a sponge, it's designed to soak up air but a smoker's lung soaks up smoke instead."

The ad wrote itself. The campaign was a huge success, greatly reducing smoking, and was rolled out across the country.

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BUGA UP: The revolt of graffitists

Tobacco advertising was officially banned on Australian radio and television in 1976, though it remained legal on billboards for some years to come.

BUGA UP — an acronym for Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotion — continued the fight after holding their first public meeting in October 1980.

They used humour and satire to drive their message through careful and often minimal billboard touch-ups.

Blocking out several letters of "Benson and Hedges", for example, produced "Be on edge", while "John Player Special" could be changed to "Lung Slayer Special".

Many tobacco brands, including Winfield, felt the wrath of BUGA UP. ( Supplied: BUGA UP )

As a new pole of anti-tobacco radicalism, BUGA UP drew attention to the morality of cigarette advertising. Funds from public support helped pay the fines of those who were arrested.

It inspired similar movements in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, where London-based group COUGH UP emerged.

It was a struggle where David finally beat Goliath. Billboard tobacco advertising was banned across Australia in 1993.

