Yosi Kadiri - Department of Health's Iconic Anti-Smoking Campaign Mascot

Yosi Kadiri was a Department of Health anti-Smoking Campaign Mascot back in the 90's. Yosi Kadiri was an iconic 80s and 90s mascot that puts a face to smoking, and its detrimental effects to the health of both smokers and non-smokers. The Yosi Kadiri campaign was heavily marketed to spread awareness and warn about the effects of smoking via outdoor signs, commercial center signages, television, call/home radio, newspapers, magazines, school organs, comic books, and premium items.

Yosi Kadira - The Mission
Yosi Kadiri Campaign

The prevalence of smoking and its detrimental effect on the health of smokers and non-smokers have alarmed government authorities. It is in this context that Yosi Kadiri Information and Education Anti-Smoking Campaign has been conceptualized and implemented.

Yosi Kadiri Campaign aims to reduce the prevalence of smoking among the youth in the 7 to 19 age bracket from 22.7% in 1987 to at least 12% by the end of 1997. Its audience includes non-smoking male and female children and teenagers with emphasis on the 12 to 16 age group.

A mascot called Yosi Kadiri is the Campaign’s spokesman together with a media network composed of outdoor signs, commercial center signages, television, call/home radio, newspapers, magazines, school organs, comic books, and premium items.

The campaign hopes to change the predisposition and predecision to go into the habit of smoking at a certain age at a certain time.

Source: Knowledge Centrum

The grim face of Yosi Kadiri and the actual mascot somewhat disturbed me as a grade school student back in the early 90's. This is probably what the Health Department was aiming for back in the days, to start them young. It somehow helped educating the newer generation (back then) of the dangers of smoking. This campaign and probably my father (even if he is a smoker) warning me that I shouldn't smoke made me not turn into a smoker. In the end, it is still up to the nearest influences that could deter one to engage in such vices.

But like I said, what if one is exposed to an environment tolerating such vices? What you get is Yosi Kadiri becoming the "real face of smoking", and not in the same sense that the Department of Health envisioned the mascot to be. Yosi Kadiri was eventually dropped by the Department of Health in early 2000, and not long, appearing once again in "Inuman Na" music video of by-then rising Filipino pop rock band Parokya ni Edgar. In the world of the young innocent and susceptible students, Yosi Kadiri may have been that malignant face to stop their natural curiosity to try things out, specifically smoking. On the world of adults on the other hand, Yosi Kadiri could very well be the face of how society views them, and that has probably made them relate more to this mascot rather than be scared of it.

Parokya Ni Edgar "Inuman Na" Music Video Featuring The Yosi Kadiri Mascot
Yosi Kadiri in Inuman Na Music Video

To those who grew up around the late 80s and early 90s Yosi Kadiri will forever be instilled in their minds. That disturbing and malicious face of a mascot, what was he DOH thought of that time when they came up with such designs for a mascot? It probably helped with the government's campaign against smoking, but eventually the mascot, just like the 90's has moved on.

What about you guys? How doyou remember Yosi Kadiri? Share your thoughts about the iconic DOH anti-smoking campaign mascot of the late 80s to early 90s on the comments section below: