Publics were also able to ‘speak back’ to public health authorities through active and more passive forms of resistance. There were collective understandings of publics as populations or citizens, but publics were often fragmented into traditional groupings such as socio-economic status, gender and ethnicity. As Mold and colleagues suggest, there was not one ‘public’ but many. The place of the public in post-war public health, and in health education and health promotion in particular, was a hotly contested issue. Indeed, we argue that the Nick O’Teen campaign can tell us much about the multi-faceted nature of the making of healthy publics in 1980s Britain. This does not mean, however, that these efforts were without interest or value. Like many other health education campaigns then and since, it is almost impossible to assess whether or not Superman was able to defeat Nick O’Teen in the long-run. Smoking rates amongst children and young people remained stubbornly consistent at around 13–10% throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and only started to fall markedly in the 2010s (ASH, 2018). Yet, if the campaign’s aim was to discourage children from smoking, its success or otherwise was much more difficult to judge. The HEC judged the campaign to be a victory, pointing to the fact that 800,000 children requested an anti-smoking pack and 92% of children surveyed had retained the poster featuring the superhero (Jacob, 1985). A wide range of visual sources, including posters, comic books and badges were put to use to encourage children aged 7–11-years-old to join Superman in his fight against Nick O’Teen. The TV advertisement was part of a campaign run by the HEC from 1980 until 1982, costing in excess of £3.5 million. Superman’s X-ray vision, he tells viewers, allows him to see inside people’s bodies which is why he ‘Never says yes to a cigarette’ (Superman vs. The 30-s clip showed ‘Nick O’Teen’ attempting to encourage a group of children to start smoking, only to be thwarted at the last minute by Superman, who swoops in and throws Nick O’Teen and his cigarettes into the distance. ![]() On Boxing Day in 1980, an anti-smoking advertisement paid for by the Health Education Council (HEC) and designed by the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi, aired on British televisions for the first time. The battle between Superman and Nick O’Teen was thus not just about smoking, but about particular ways of seeing and interacting with healthy (and unhealthy) publics. This campaign also took place as ideas about health education, its place within public health policy and practice, and its relationship with the public, were in flux. This ambivalent conceptualisation of the child as a potential victim of malign influences, or potential rational agent and force for good, is typical of the 1980s, a time when the meanings of the child as consumer, agent, and citizen were undergoing increased ideological debate. But on the other, children were also recognised as agents who might convince adults, as well as their peers not to smoke. On the one hand, they were thought to be vulnerable and easily led towards unhealthy lifestyle choices. ![]() Children constituted a particularly problematic public. ![]() Nick O’Teen campaign in order to probe the multi-faceted nature of the making of healthy publics in 1980s Britain. This article examines the design, production, delivery and reception of the Superman vs. Children were also encouraged to join Superman in his fight by signing a pledge not to smoke, in return for which they received a poster and badges featuring the superhero. Advertisements on TV and in comics and magazines featured a battle between Superman and the evil Nick O’Teen as he attempted to recruit children to his army of smokers. In December 1980, the Health Education Council launched a campaign designed to discourage children from taking up smoking.
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