There are no more butts with Zapp

The Diary knows only too well how quiet the ad industry is in the dog days of summer, but design agency Zapp Communications seems to have far too much time on its hands.

Lunching in neighbouring Hoxton Square would be a sunny pleasure for the agency’s employees if it wasn’t for fag butts left smouldering in the grass.

So the design team hatched a cunning plan. The solution to their problem of a giant outdoor ashtray comes in the form of cans on a string. Smokers can pick up the cans, carry them around like a portable ashtray and return them to a selected point when they leave the park.

Not content with providing cans, Zapp sent out an agency “angel” to convert smokers to drop their bad habits. If walking around like a plonker holding a can on a string wasn’t enough to put them off, surely being accosted by a heavenly messenger will be even more effective than patches.