WIRRAL marketing agency ICE has signed up multi-platinum-selling singer Lemar to back an anti-smoking campaign.

Birkenhead-based ICE is working with national anti-smoking charities The Deborah Hutton Campaign and No Smoking Day to promote Cut Films – a competition challenging young people to make a short film about “why smoking isn’t cool”.

A pilot version of the competition last year attracted interest from many schools and youth clubs, and now Cut Films is being launched nationally. Lemar, who is already an ambassador for No Smoking Day, is helping to promote the event.

Lemar’s hits include If There’s Any Justice and Don’t Give It Up and his 2004 album, Time to Grow, achieved double-platinum status.

He said: “What really excites me about Cut Films is that this isn’t just a bunch of adults telling you what to do. It’s about young people getting together, getting creative and getting to voice their own opinions on smoking.

“I’m not here to lecture anyone, but I do want to help make sure that other young people get the same good advice about not smoking that I was lucky enough to have when I was younger.

“I think Cut Films is a really great way of spreading the word that smoking isn’t cool, and I want to encourage as many people as possible to get involved.”

The company will be working alongside the Deborah Hutton Campaign and No Smoking Day to promote the competition among young people and health workers.

As well as promoting Cut Film through traditional media channels, ICE’s PR team have also been promoting the campaign across social media websites such as You Tube, Twitter and Facebook, with the help of a short promotional video also featuring Lemar.

The winners and runners up will be announced on No Smoking Day – Wednesday, March 9, 2011 – while the winner will have their film shown at a special awards ceremony in London later that month.

In July, social marketing specialist ICE was listed at number 11 in PR Week magazine’s list of the UK’s top 25 public sector PR consultancies.

In the last year, ICE has opened offices in Bristol, London and Newcastle, as well as winning new accounts with the Department of Health and multiple new NHS and local authority clients.

ICE says that, in its first year, its west London office won and delivered a contract a month.

Business development director for ICE in the South East, Suzanne Goldenberg, said: “As well as working in London boroughs such as Islington, Sutton and Merton, Bexley and Richmond, we’ve also been building relationships in communities on the south coast and the East of England.”

FOR information on the competition, visit www.cutfilms.org