Denisa
Hejlova

Strategic Communication and Public Relations Expert

In 2012, Denisa Hejlova together with a group of Charles University students (namely Sabina Bergerova and Miroslav Slíž) and executives from leading Czech market and public opinion research agency, IPSOS, started a long-term PR and advocacy campaign to ban smoking in the restaurants.
The aim of this campaign was a paradigm shift in media framing of smoking in restaurants, which has been perceived as a legitimate right of the smokers and restaurant owners, and as a symbol of freedom.
Under Denisa’s supervision, the students launched a biggest national representative survey executed by IPSOS (pro bono), asking more than eight thousands respondents, and presented the results at a press conference together with IPSOS CEO, Radek Jaluvka, and IPSOS manager, Tatiana Wartuschova. The results were impressive: 78 % of the population was supporting the total ban of smoking in restaurants.
The exact numbers changed the media framing and turned the whole public debate about the freedom to smoke into a freedom to access fresh air. The results were cited in hundreds of media articles and headline news.
The campaign “The Paradigm Shift: Czechs want to ban smoking in restaurants” has won 2 prestigious Czech PR Awards in 2013 and got the “Miroslav Petrusek Prize” for representing the Charles University in 2014.
Antismoking campaign