“Think. Don’t Smoke”: Why the Health Belief Model Makes the Campaign Ineffective- Simona Shuster
"In order to motivate someone to quit, you have to provoke a strong emotional response," Jenna Mandel-Ricci, director of special projects for the Department of Health, told the Daily News. "If we run ads that people don't remember or that don't affect people, then people won't call for help (1).” This statement can be extrapolated to describe any situation, particularly anti-smoking. Many a campaign has been created to show the ravages of smoking on the psyche and body on youth and adults alike, but to no avail. About half of all smokers who keep smoking will end up dying from a smoking-related illness (2). If information and campaigns are so prevalent about the horrifying effects of smoking, why is youth still determined to smoke?
Most anti-smoking campaigns remain failures because their messages are unclear or weak. Millions of dollars have been wasted in efforts trying to make people quit, but much of the ads are only informational in nature. Ironically, it is more the colorful and fun pro-smoking campaigns and billboards that most people remember and not their antithesis. Philip Morris is notorious for making the Marlboro Man, the iconic rugged man on his horse, smoking his cigarette, because that is what real men do, and to which other men can only aspire. Thus, when Philip Morris set out the venture to dissuade youth from smoking, most were surprised, but admittedly pleased initially with the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign that resulted. However, what looks too good to be true often is and this campaign, with its official message of discouraging youth from smoking, brings out many subliminal messages, least of which is the adage that was intended.
As an anti-smoking campaign, “Think, Don’t Smoke” failed miserably because it based its advertisements on the Health Belief Model. Many facets of the Health Belief Model do not hold true when applied to this public health epidemic. Thus, the campaigns built upon them can only have limited success in their endeavor to keep adolescents off cigarettes. This essay will focus on the 3 most influential flaws of the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign committed by Philip Morris, based on the Health Belief Model.
The Health Belief Model is the oldest model and upon which much of public health campaigns still rely. Its main premise is that human beings are rational creatures and behave in predictable patterns. Therefore, once the intent is present, it will lead to behavior. However, several crucial components stem into the intention. Perceived susceptibility is the degree to which a person feels at risk for a health problem. If the susceptibility is high, the person will have increased chances of committing the behavior. Perceived severity focuses on the premise that the person may believe the consequences of the problem to be harsh. Perceived benefits are the positive outcomes a person believes will result from the action, whereas the perceived barriers are the exact opposite as the negative outcomes. Once a person has carefully accessed all of the pros and cons of the making that choice, and it is their intention to do it, they will go ahead and commence with that conclusion.
Flaw #1: Youth Act in a Predictable Manner
The first incorrect assumption is the most hindering to public health campaigns and entails the premise mentioned earlier that youth will act in a predictable manner. However, people are predictably irrational and youth make it their stance to be deliberately so. The research that Philip Morris used primarily failed to account for the rationale of youth and their rebellious nature and determination to seek full independence and maintain decision making authority. It is precisely their irrationality that makes the ads unrealistic and to which adolescents cannot relate. The children found the Philip Morris adverts to be the least effective of all in making them “stop and think” about not smoking. Some of the respondents said that the Philip Morris adverts sounded more like a parental lecture, and overall there was a feeling that they lacked substance and good reasons not to smoke (3). Studies have proven that the worst campaigns are those reflecting an authority figure telling the adolescents what to do. In one example, a young teen is going out with friends and upon leaving, her father reminds her not to drink or smoke. She replies that she knows and does not do so when someone tries to offer her a cigarette in her group. The ad is cleverly done because the girl is in a group of her peers and says no. However, if one pays attention to the subtleties of the advert, he will notice that she did not even glance at the person offering her a cigarette which means that she either does not know this person or does not hold him in high regard. If she did, she would have more likely accepted his offer of a cigarette.
The ads are also clever in that they only focus on teens as their current ages and do not extrapolate into the future. It is a well documented fact that young adults do not think about their health in the future. The focus is more short-term and during their teen years, adolescents have yet to acquire any diseases that could be attributed to smoking. Heart disease and lung cancer seems a long way away to a 16 year old girl starting to smoke because of peer pressure. Her attitude may be “anyway by the time I get to 40, they will have a cure(4).” There are also no perceived barriers to smoking during adolescence because the negative outcomes will be much later in life. The perceived severity is greatly reduced as teenagers feel, precisely as a result of their youth, that they will be able to quit whenever they want. That is very true in that they will quit and start up again. Nicotine, a drug found naturally in tobacco, is highly addictive -- as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Over time, a person becomes physically and emotionally addicted to (dependent on) nicotine. Studies have shown that smokers must deal with both the physical and psychological (mental) dependence to quit and stay quit (2).
Flaw #2: The Health Belief Model doesn’t Account for External Factors and Social Norms
The next flaw of the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign is that, because it is based on the Health Belief Model, it does not take into account external factors and social norms. A University of Georgia study found that youth will only respond to a campaign because of peer pressure; they assume that their friends are interested and will be listening. Otherwise, the ads appear to stimulate the rebellious and curious nature of youth, making them more interested in smoking (5). One advert that Philip Morris uses does have a group of teenagers sitting around the steps leading to a beach and discussing how different all of them are and that is what makes them unique (6). This is the reason they cite for not smoking. Some teenagers may react well to this ad, but if they think their friends will scoff at it or notice their peers making fun of it, then they will partake in this action. "Perception is sometimes more powerful than actual behavior, that it doesn't necessarily matter how your friends respond to the ads, but how you think your friends are responding (5).” While Phillip Morris tries to capture individuality or independence that adolescents crave during their teen years by showing all of the teenagers together, it still fails to make a big impact upon other teens in terms of anti-smoking, but does a great job of convincing them to pursue the bad behavior. Those who do not share the thoughts and feelings of the youths presented in the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign simply do not relate to the ad. This latter group, however, has greater potential to become future smokers and should therefore be the main focus of a tobacco counter-marketing campaign (7). The point is supposed to be to make the advertisements very pragmatic so that teens can realistically see themselves in those positions and being able to avoid succumbing to peer pressure.
Flaw #3: The Slogan Is a Failure
The final flaw in the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign is the actual failure of the slogan itself. Firstly, the slogan manifests itself in a derogatory and patronizing manner, which teenagers will immediately find offensive. When one is commanded to perform an action, it will immediately set off a rebellious attitude against the stated action, despite the perceived benefits of knowing that the consequences of performing that action would be positive. Furthermore, the authoritative and negative tone of the slogan draws teenagers to counteract out of spite. Philip Morris says it has spent more than $1 billion on its youth smoking prevention programs since 1998 and that it devised its current advertising campaign on the advice of experts who deem parental influence extremely important (8). Clearly their research is not very thorough because adolescents do not want to be told what to do, especially not by adults. Therefore, the slogan is stating if one thinks, then he is listening to what adults have to say, and he won’t smoke. Teenagers do not want to be associated with thinkers because they are the “not cool” crowd. The ad is counter-productive in the sense that it specifically draws out the disobedient nature of youth who will relish the thought of smoking just to avoid being mislabeled into the wrong crowd. This is again where societal norms take precedence over what the individual may think. Teenagers do not want to be different, and instead form cliques that then generate the label to all who “fit in.” The campaign has failed to take into account what adolescents hold in esteem and have created ads that are ridiculous in content and scope. Also, a very basic and obvious critique of the campaign is the tackiness of the ads. It gives one the impression that the Anti-Smoking campaign, albeit spending over $100 million dollars to create, couldn’t really care less about the anti-smoking message and that each campaign involved the most minimal of efforts on the part of the creators and writers. Youth seeing these adverts could disregard them based on these tenets alone, not even bothering to query about the message the campaign is trying to convey. The campaign did the least well among youths in greatest need of messages that discourage smoking (9).
The failure of the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign can be relegated to the fact that Philip Morris created these adverts. It would be prudent to remember that these people are in the market of promoting cigarette smoking and addiction because it keeps them in business. They would never create logical campaigns to promote anti-smoking because they would lose their revenue base. For each smoker who dies, the firm then taps into the youth markets and recruits more by using more of these campaigns. Oddly enough, the Philip Morris website itself indicates that they are actively promoting youth anti-smoking and that their product is intended for adults. These phrases will make the idea of the all mighty cigarette even more idealistic to young adults who see this as a toy that can only be played with once they are grown. They will do everything in their power to obtain this product to be able to brag that they are performing the action only meant for adults. This is a predictable behavior of human nature. One will always want what one “can’t have.” A new study by the American Legacy Foundation gives conclusive evidence that Philip Morris’ latest efforts to clean up its image by running advertisements purporting to discourage youth smoking are nothing more than a sham. Instead of reducing youth smoking, they insidiously encourage kids to use tobacco and become addicted Philip Morris customers (10).
Using Advertising and Marketing Theories in “Infect Truth” to Counteract the Health Belief Model and “Think. Don’t Smoke.”- Simona Shuster
Insofar as many anti-smoking campaigns have failed to live up to the promise of their campaigns, “Infect Truth” comes out with a stunning victory over other efforts as they base their campaigns on young adults’ and adolescents’ core values. The “Infect Truth” adverts are the exemplary counterpart to the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign launched by Philip Morris. The campaign features young adults revealing messages about tobacco companies- they are often campy and catchy, with sing-song phrases and musicals. It is the only national smoking prevention campaign not directed by the tobacco industry, which exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking. It is a national peer-to-peer intervention that works (11). The messages are very cleverly designed because they criticize the tobacco slogans in a manner that is clearly understandable to the layman.
“Infect Truth” resulted from a victory of the state of Florida over the tobacco companies in 1998. The State took the $13 billion per year settlement and formed the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program in 1997. The program set out to drive a wedge between the tobacco industry's advertising and a youth audience. It not only assembled a team of advertising and public relations firms to develop the marketing portion of the campaign but also directly polled Florida's youth. From this, emerged “Infect the Truth” in 2000, the campaign concept of a youth movement against tobacco companies promoted through a youth-driven advertising campaign (12).
The campaign uses the social models of Advertising and Marketing Theories, based not on the individual but rather on society as a whole, to drive its point. Advertising and Marketing Theories are ubiquitous in the advertisements and show “Infect Truth” as a global brand that all young adults now recognize. Advertising theory posits that the way to have people behave is to make them a promise and provide support for that promise that will in turn help people behave in said manner. In this instance, the entire premise and promise of the “Infect Truth” campaign is if youth knows the truth about smoking and its effects and more importantly, can relate to the messages conveyed, they will be less likely to begin smoking or continue smoking if already started. Marketing Theory takes Advertising Theory one more level with the branding of the product- which in this case, is “infecting truth” about smoking. The campaign does an excellent job of correcting the three flaws that were prevalent in the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign.
Flaw #1: Youth Act in a Predictable Manner
The “Think. Don’t Smoke” advertisements focused on campaigns that had children listening to authority figures. “Infect Truth” advertisements feature edgy, and rebellious multi ethnic teens rejecting tobacco marketing efforts and revealing stark facts about the deadly nature of tobacco (13) “Truth” accounts for the rebelliousness of teenagers by showing them ridiculous adverts based on the real results of cigarette smoking. The adverts work because of their ludicrous nature- the whole scheme is that as the commercial is over, one shakes his head and says “wow, that was stupid” and that is exactly the point because it makes the person stop and focus exactly on the meaning and in turn grabs his attention to the inanity of smoking. The advert entitled the Sunny Side of Truth (14) shows two young males in front of a large corporate edifice, meant to portray the tobacco company, with a table filled with poisons outlining the chemicals found in cigarettes. One says to the other- “cigarette companies must really hate us.” To which the other replies, “or love us- it’s called tough love,” then they break into song and dance about how cigarette smoking maims and kills. The adage that comes to mind with this commercial is “tough love- whatever doesn’t kill you, will only make you stronger.” Ironically, cigarettes will kill, or make one significantly weaker. The adverts use both a white and black actor so as to not prejudice the commercial. Framing the adverts in such a manner encompasses and promotes the unity of all teenagers, indicating that youth smoking is a problem across ethnicities. There are no parental roles showcased in these adverts- solely teenagers making a mockery of the tobacco industry so that other teenagers can see this and relate.
Seventy-five percent of all teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 state that they can accurately describe one or more of the Truth campaigns and that the adverts gave them good reasons not to smoke (15). The point is to have young children not smoke now so that they need not worry about their future health, as it relates to smoking. “The Truth” campaign provides a return on investment that would make the greediest corporate CEOs salivate and if the Truth campaign continues for another five years (2009-2014) with similar effectiveness, there will be up to 500,000 fewer youth smokers with savings of up to $9 billion in future medical costs (11).
Flaw #2: The Health Belief Model doesn’t Account for External Factors and Social Norms
The “Infect Truth” campaigns, as based on the Advertising and Marketing Theories, greatly focus on external factors and social norms. These adverts intentionally do not use the Health Belief Model because of its individual nature. The adverts’ foundation, the promise indicated in the commercials, is their ludicrous nature that amalgamates youths’ opinion. The commercials unify youth by exploiting the asininity of the messages. The very nature of the message is intended to have youth scoff at it, but simultaneously pay attention. Therefore, no alienation will occur amongst teenagers as they will think the same. The advert entitled Box of Poison (16) shows several teenagers walking into a shipment facility and asking if they can ship cyanide and poison. The workers are astounded and obviously say that these ingredients are hazardous material and therefore illegal to ship. The teenagers entirely agree, but also maintain their stance that they want to send the product, finally letting on that the product is a box of cigarettes. The commercial manifests itself in a sneaky, but witty manner, in that the contents are presented first, before the merchandise is revealed. Furthermore, the commercial imparts information without being obnoxious and alienating people. Teenagers find the commercial to be very relevant and significantly changed their attitudes towards tobacco. “The Truth” campaign is successful precisely because it takes into account [advertising theory] and develops its ads using the best scientific research about how young people make their decisions about whether to smoke and what is most likely to influence them not to smoke [which is social perceptions] (13).
Flaw #3: The Slogan is a Failure
“Infect Truth,” unlike “Think. Don’t Smoke.” is a very straightforward slogan. There is no mockery, no gimmicks being implied nor orders being inferred. It is the truth that the adverts are maintaining and therefore cannot be labeled anything else. There are no subliminal messages and the meaning, most importantly, is very clear. The slogans in every truth advert also feature “Knowledge is contagious.” This is a very pithy comment, and yet absolutely genius, because it resonates with people. It is human nature to share details of what one has learned or heard, regardless of whether groups are discussing gossip, local and national news or more trivial matters. People communicate constantly and will discuss these adverts. Therefore, knowledge really is contagious. Case in point is the advert featuring the crawling babies with orange shirts (17). It immediately grabs one’s attention because they are “crying babies,” but also because of the message written on the shirt, stating that babies avoid second hand smoking by learning to crawl away (17). One’s initial reaction is incredulity of the message and then the necessity to share it with others. Using the television medium empowers the efficacy of the commercial to reach millions of people. Once very small children are affected, the message is much more effective.
Infect Truth is written at the end of each advert and manifests the advertising theory very successfully in the way the phrase is actually written. The word infect is in white and truth in black dots that seem to diverge. The point is to infect, or spread the contagious truthful knowledge. The promise behind this campaign is again infecting truth and spreading knowledge such that the promise of keeping children from smoking is realized and executed. The fact that these scenes are filmed in public places where ordinary citizens are allowed, even subtly encouraged to participate is key to the slogan. These people are spreading the contagion of knowledge by reading the messages (in Baby Invasion) or listening to the teenagers (Box of Poison, Sunny Side of Truth) and their very reactions cause teenagers’ perceptions to shift even more so because they see on national television that others are appalled and/or disgusted by the newfound information. These adolescents would therefore be more inclined to pay attention to the adverts from these reactions as well.
“The Truth” adverts, as myriads of studies have attested, are the only ones that make a positive dramatic impact on the perceptions and attitudes of teenagers. It is imperative to keep the focus on decreasing the prevalence of youth smoking. Although the Truth campaign’s funding was officially cut in 2003 by the tobacco industry because the latter lost its 99.05% market share, new adverts have begun to play again. The Citizen’s Commission to “Protect the Truth”, the only independent national youth counter-marketing campaign with demonstrated results in keeping children and teens from smoking, is demanding that the tobacco firms resume payment because ending smoking by American children and teens is crucial to their health and cost of healthcare to our nation (11). Moreover, the adverts themselves, and the message implied, are very concise and factual. There is no attempt to mislead anyone, but only to “infect truth.”
REFERENCES:
1. New York Daily News. Australian Anti-Smoking Campaign draws howls as boy sobs for mommy. New York, New York. http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/04/04/2009-04 04_australian_antismoking_commercial_draws_-1.html.
2. American Cancer Society. Guide to Quitting Smoking. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_13X_Guide_for_Quitting_Smoking.asp
3. British Medical Journal. “Don’t Smoke,” Buy Marlboro. Washington DC: Public Medical Central. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1115680
4. Tate, Peter. The Health Belief Model Explained for Patients. EzineArticles.com.<http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Health-Belief-Model-Explained-for-Patients&id=411478>.
5. University of Georgia. Why Some Anti Smoking Ads Succeed and Others Backfire. ScienceDaily.
7. American Legacy Foundation. Getting to the Truth: Assessing Youths’ Reactions to the “Truth” and “Think. Don’t Smoke” Tobacco Counter-marketing Campaigns. Washington DC: American Legacy Foundation. 2002. p.22
8. New York Times. When Don’t Smoke Means Do. Washington DC: The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/opinion/27mon1.html.
9. American Legacy Foundation. Getting to the Truth: Assessing Youths’ Reactions to the “Truth” and “Think. Don’t Smoke” Tobacco Counter-marketing Campaigns. Washington DC: American Legacy Foundation. 2002. p.18
10. Spivak, Joel and Berman, Michael. “American Legacy Foundation Study shows Philip Morris Think. Don’t Smoke Campaign is a Sham.” Washington DC: Tobacco Free Kids. http:www.tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=499&zoom_highlight=duplicity
11. Citizens’ Commission to Protect the Truth. Truth Campaign Can Save Half a Million Lives and Billions of Dollars. New York, New York. http://www.jointogether.org/news/yourturn/announcements/2009/truth-campaign-can-save-half.html.
12. Wikipedia Encyclopedia. The Truth Campaign.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTruth.com
13. Counsel for Amicus Curaie, National Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Columbia Expert Panel and the Florida “Truth” Campaign. Washington DC. http://www.lungcanceralliance.org/news/documents/ALFAmicusBrief2.pdf
14. The Truth Advertisement. Sunny Side of Truth. Infect Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. New York, New York. http://www.thetruth.com/videos/
15. The Truth Campaign. New York, New York
http://www.protectthetruth.org/truthcampaign.htm
16. The Truth Advertisement. Box of Poison. Infect Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. New York, New York. http://www.thetruth.com/videos/
17. The Truth Advertisement. Baby Invasion. Infect Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. New York, New York. http://www.thetruth.com/videos/
Most anti-smoking campaigns remain failures because their messages are unclear or weak. Millions of dollars have been wasted in efforts trying to make people quit, but much of the ads are only informational in nature. Ironically, it is more the colorful and fun pro-smoking campaigns and billboards that most people remember and not their antithesis. Philip Morris is notorious for making the Marlboro Man, the iconic rugged man on his horse, smoking his cigarette, because that is what real men do, and to which other men can only aspire. Thus, when Philip Morris set out the venture to dissuade youth from smoking, most were surprised, but admittedly pleased initially with the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign that resulted. However, what looks too good to be true often is and this campaign, with its official message of discouraging youth from smoking, brings out many subliminal messages, least of which is the adage that was intended.
As an anti-smoking campaign, “Think, Don’t Smoke” failed miserably because it based its advertisements on the Health Belief Model. Many facets of the Health Belief Model do not hold true when applied to this public health epidemic. Thus, the campaigns built upon them can only have limited success in their endeavor to keep adolescents off cigarettes. This essay will focus on the 3 most influential flaws of the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign committed by Philip Morris, based on the Health Belief Model.
The Health Belief Model is the oldest model and upon which much of public health campaigns still rely. Its main premise is that human beings are rational creatures and behave in predictable patterns. Therefore, once the intent is present, it will lead to behavior. However, several crucial components stem into the intention. Perceived susceptibility is the degree to which a person feels at risk for a health problem. If the susceptibility is high, the person will have increased chances of committing the behavior. Perceived severity focuses on the premise that the person may believe the consequences of the problem to be harsh. Perceived benefits are the positive outcomes a person believes will result from the action, whereas the perceived barriers are the exact opposite as the negative outcomes. Once a person has carefully accessed all of the pros and cons of the making that choice, and it is their intention to do it, they will go ahead and commence with that conclusion.
Flaw #1: Youth Act in a Predictable Manner
The first incorrect assumption is the most hindering to public health campaigns and entails the premise mentioned earlier that youth will act in a predictable manner. However, people are predictably irrational and youth make it their stance to be deliberately so. The research that Philip Morris used primarily failed to account for the rationale of youth and their rebellious nature and determination to seek full independence and maintain decision making authority. It is precisely their irrationality that makes the ads unrealistic and to which adolescents cannot relate. The children found the Philip Morris adverts to be the least effective of all in making them “stop and think” about not smoking. Some of the respondents said that the Philip Morris adverts sounded more like a parental lecture, and overall there was a feeling that they lacked substance and good reasons not to smoke (3). Studies have proven that the worst campaigns are those reflecting an authority figure telling the adolescents what to do. In one example, a young teen is going out with friends and upon leaving, her father reminds her not to drink or smoke. She replies that she knows and does not do so when someone tries to offer her a cigarette in her group. The ad is cleverly done because the girl is in a group of her peers and says no. However, if one pays attention to the subtleties of the advert, he will notice that she did not even glance at the person offering her a cigarette which means that she either does not know this person or does not hold him in high regard. If she did, she would have more likely accepted his offer of a cigarette.
The ads are also clever in that they only focus on teens as their current ages and do not extrapolate into the future. It is a well documented fact that young adults do not think about their health in the future. The focus is more short-term and during their teen years, adolescents have yet to acquire any diseases that could be attributed to smoking. Heart disease and lung cancer seems a long way away to a 16 year old girl starting to smoke because of peer pressure. Her attitude may be “anyway by the time I get to 40, they will have a cure(4).” There are also no perceived barriers to smoking during adolescence because the negative outcomes will be much later in life. The perceived severity is greatly reduced as teenagers feel, precisely as a result of their youth, that they will be able to quit whenever they want. That is very true in that they will quit and start up again. Nicotine, a drug found naturally in tobacco, is highly addictive -- as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Over time, a person becomes physically and emotionally addicted to (dependent on) nicotine. Studies have shown that smokers must deal with both the physical and psychological (mental) dependence to quit and stay quit (2).
Flaw #2: The Health Belief Model doesn’t Account for External Factors and Social Norms
The next flaw of the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign is that, because it is based on the Health Belief Model, it does not take into account external factors and social norms. A University of Georgia study found that youth will only respond to a campaign because of peer pressure; they assume that their friends are interested and will be listening. Otherwise, the ads appear to stimulate the rebellious and curious nature of youth, making them more interested in smoking (5). One advert that Philip Morris uses does have a group of teenagers sitting around the steps leading to a beach and discussing how different all of them are and that is what makes them unique (6). This is the reason they cite for not smoking. Some teenagers may react well to this ad, but if they think their friends will scoff at it or notice their peers making fun of it, then they will partake in this action. "Perception is sometimes more powerful than actual behavior, that it doesn't necessarily matter how your friends respond to the ads, but how you think your friends are responding (5).” While Phillip Morris tries to capture individuality or independence that adolescents crave during their teen years by showing all of the teenagers together, it still fails to make a big impact upon other teens in terms of anti-smoking, but does a great job of convincing them to pursue the bad behavior. Those who do not share the thoughts and feelings of the youths presented in the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign simply do not relate to the ad. This latter group, however, has greater potential to become future smokers and should therefore be the main focus of a tobacco counter-marketing campaign (7). The point is supposed to be to make the advertisements very pragmatic so that teens can realistically see themselves in those positions and being able to avoid succumbing to peer pressure.
Flaw #3: The Slogan Is a Failure
The final flaw in the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign is the actual failure of the slogan itself. Firstly, the slogan manifests itself in a derogatory and patronizing manner, which teenagers will immediately find offensive. When one is commanded to perform an action, it will immediately set off a rebellious attitude against the stated action, despite the perceived benefits of knowing that the consequences of performing that action would be positive. Furthermore, the authoritative and negative tone of the slogan draws teenagers to counteract out of spite. Philip Morris says it has spent more than $1 billion on its youth smoking prevention programs since 1998 and that it devised its current advertising campaign on the advice of experts who deem parental influence extremely important (8). Clearly their research is not very thorough because adolescents do not want to be told what to do, especially not by adults. Therefore, the slogan is stating if one thinks, then he is listening to what adults have to say, and he won’t smoke. Teenagers do not want to be associated with thinkers because they are the “not cool” crowd. The ad is counter-productive in the sense that it specifically draws out the disobedient nature of youth who will relish the thought of smoking just to avoid being mislabeled into the wrong crowd. This is again where societal norms take precedence over what the individual may think. Teenagers do not want to be different, and instead form cliques that then generate the label to all who “fit in.” The campaign has failed to take into account what adolescents hold in esteem and have created ads that are ridiculous in content and scope. Also, a very basic and obvious critique of the campaign is the tackiness of the ads. It gives one the impression that the Anti-Smoking campaign, albeit spending over $100 million dollars to create, couldn’t really care less about the anti-smoking message and that each campaign involved the most minimal of efforts on the part of the creators and writers. Youth seeing these adverts could disregard them based on these tenets alone, not even bothering to query about the message the campaign is trying to convey. The campaign did the least well among youths in greatest need of messages that discourage smoking (9).
The failure of the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign can be relegated to the fact that Philip Morris created these adverts. It would be prudent to remember that these people are in the market of promoting cigarette smoking and addiction because it keeps them in business. They would never create logical campaigns to promote anti-smoking because they would lose their revenue base. For each smoker who dies, the firm then taps into the youth markets and recruits more by using more of these campaigns. Oddly enough, the Philip Morris website itself indicates that they are actively promoting youth anti-smoking and that their product is intended for adults. These phrases will make the idea of the all mighty cigarette even more idealistic to young adults who see this as a toy that can only be played with once they are grown. They will do everything in their power to obtain this product to be able to brag that they are performing the action only meant for adults. This is a predictable behavior of human nature. One will always want what one “can’t have.” A new study by the American Legacy Foundation gives conclusive evidence that Philip Morris’ latest efforts to clean up its image by running advertisements purporting to discourage youth smoking are nothing more than a sham. Instead of reducing youth smoking, they insidiously encourage kids to use tobacco and become addicted Philip Morris customers (10).
Using Advertising and Marketing Theories in “Infect Truth” to Counteract the Health Belief Model and “Think. Don’t Smoke.”- Simona Shuster
Insofar as many anti-smoking campaigns have failed to live up to the promise of their campaigns, “Infect Truth” comes out with a stunning victory over other efforts as they base their campaigns on young adults’ and adolescents’ core values. The “Infect Truth” adverts are the exemplary counterpart to the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign launched by Philip Morris. The campaign features young adults revealing messages about tobacco companies- they are often campy and catchy, with sing-song phrases and musicals. It is the only national smoking prevention campaign not directed by the tobacco industry, which exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking. It is a national peer-to-peer intervention that works (11). The messages are very cleverly designed because they criticize the tobacco slogans in a manner that is clearly understandable to the layman.
“Infect Truth” resulted from a victory of the state of Florida over the tobacco companies in 1998. The State took the $13 billion per year settlement and formed the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program in 1997. The program set out to drive a wedge between the tobacco industry's advertising and a youth audience. It not only assembled a team of advertising and public relations firms to develop the marketing portion of the campaign but also directly polled Florida's youth. From this, emerged “Infect the Truth” in 2000, the campaign concept of a youth movement against tobacco companies promoted through a youth-driven advertising campaign (12).
The campaign uses the social models of Advertising and Marketing Theories, based not on the individual but rather on society as a whole, to drive its point. Advertising and Marketing Theories are ubiquitous in the advertisements and show “Infect Truth” as a global brand that all young adults now recognize. Advertising theory posits that the way to have people behave is to make them a promise and provide support for that promise that will in turn help people behave in said manner. In this instance, the entire premise and promise of the “Infect Truth” campaign is if youth knows the truth about smoking and its effects and more importantly, can relate to the messages conveyed, they will be less likely to begin smoking or continue smoking if already started. Marketing Theory takes Advertising Theory one more level with the branding of the product- which in this case, is “infecting truth” about smoking. The campaign does an excellent job of correcting the three flaws that were prevalent in the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign.
Flaw #1: Youth Act in a Predictable Manner
The “Think. Don’t Smoke” advertisements focused on campaigns that had children listening to authority figures. “Infect Truth” advertisements feature edgy, and rebellious multi ethnic teens rejecting tobacco marketing efforts and revealing stark facts about the deadly nature of tobacco (13) “Truth” accounts for the rebelliousness of teenagers by showing them ridiculous adverts based on the real results of cigarette smoking. The adverts work because of their ludicrous nature- the whole scheme is that as the commercial is over, one shakes his head and says “wow, that was stupid” and that is exactly the point because it makes the person stop and focus exactly on the meaning and in turn grabs his attention to the inanity of smoking. The advert entitled the Sunny Side of Truth (14) shows two young males in front of a large corporate edifice, meant to portray the tobacco company, with a table filled with poisons outlining the chemicals found in cigarettes. One says to the other- “cigarette companies must really hate us.” To which the other replies, “or love us- it’s called tough love,” then they break into song and dance about how cigarette smoking maims and kills. The adage that comes to mind with this commercial is “tough love- whatever doesn’t kill you, will only make you stronger.” Ironically, cigarettes will kill, or make one significantly weaker. The adverts use both a white and black actor so as to not prejudice the commercial. Framing the adverts in such a manner encompasses and promotes the unity of all teenagers, indicating that youth smoking is a problem across ethnicities. There are no parental roles showcased in these adverts- solely teenagers making a mockery of the tobacco industry so that other teenagers can see this and relate.
Seventy-five percent of all teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 state that they can accurately describe one or more of the Truth campaigns and that the adverts gave them good reasons not to smoke (15). The point is to have young children not smoke now so that they need not worry about their future health, as it relates to smoking. “The Truth” campaign provides a return on investment that would make the greediest corporate CEOs salivate and if the Truth campaign continues for another five years (2009-2014) with similar effectiveness, there will be up to 500,000 fewer youth smokers with savings of up to $9 billion in future medical costs (11).
Flaw #2: The Health Belief Model doesn’t Account for External Factors and Social Norms
The “Infect Truth” campaigns, as based on the Advertising and Marketing Theories, greatly focus on external factors and social norms. These adverts intentionally do not use the Health Belief Model because of its individual nature. The adverts’ foundation, the promise indicated in the commercials, is their ludicrous nature that amalgamates youths’ opinion. The commercials unify youth by exploiting the asininity of the messages. The very nature of the message is intended to have youth scoff at it, but simultaneously pay attention. Therefore, no alienation will occur amongst teenagers as they will think the same. The advert entitled Box of Poison (16) shows several teenagers walking into a shipment facility and asking if they can ship cyanide and poison. The workers are astounded and obviously say that these ingredients are hazardous material and therefore illegal to ship. The teenagers entirely agree, but also maintain their stance that they want to send the product, finally letting on that the product is a box of cigarettes. The commercial manifests itself in a sneaky, but witty manner, in that the contents are presented first, before the merchandise is revealed. Furthermore, the commercial imparts information without being obnoxious and alienating people. Teenagers find the commercial to be very relevant and significantly changed their attitudes towards tobacco. “The Truth” campaign is successful precisely because it takes into account [advertising theory] and develops its ads using the best scientific research about how young people make their decisions about whether to smoke and what is most likely to influence them not to smoke [which is social perceptions] (13).
Flaw #3: The Slogan is a Failure
“Infect Truth,” unlike “Think. Don’t Smoke.” is a very straightforward slogan. There is no mockery, no gimmicks being implied nor orders being inferred. It is the truth that the adverts are maintaining and therefore cannot be labeled anything else. There are no subliminal messages and the meaning, most importantly, is very clear. The slogans in every truth advert also feature “Knowledge is contagious.” This is a very pithy comment, and yet absolutely genius, because it resonates with people. It is human nature to share details of what one has learned or heard, regardless of whether groups are discussing gossip, local and national news or more trivial matters. People communicate constantly and will discuss these adverts. Therefore, knowledge really is contagious. Case in point is the advert featuring the crawling babies with orange shirts (17). It immediately grabs one’s attention because they are “crying babies,” but also because of the message written on the shirt, stating that babies avoid second hand smoking by learning to crawl away (17). One’s initial reaction is incredulity of the message and then the necessity to share it with others. Using the television medium empowers the efficacy of the commercial to reach millions of people. Once very small children are affected, the message is much more effective.
Infect Truth is written at the end of each advert and manifests the advertising theory very successfully in the way the phrase is actually written. The word infect is in white and truth in black dots that seem to diverge. The point is to infect, or spread the contagious truthful knowledge. The promise behind this campaign is again infecting truth and spreading knowledge such that the promise of keeping children from smoking is realized and executed. The fact that these scenes are filmed in public places where ordinary citizens are allowed, even subtly encouraged to participate is key to the slogan. These people are spreading the contagion of knowledge by reading the messages (in Baby Invasion) or listening to the teenagers (Box of Poison, Sunny Side of Truth) and their very reactions cause teenagers’ perceptions to shift even more so because they see on national television that others are appalled and/or disgusted by the newfound information. These adolescents would therefore be more inclined to pay attention to the adverts from these reactions as well.
“The Truth” adverts, as myriads of studies have attested, are the only ones that make a positive dramatic impact on the perceptions and attitudes of teenagers. It is imperative to keep the focus on decreasing the prevalence of youth smoking. Although the Truth campaign’s funding was officially cut in 2003 by the tobacco industry because the latter lost its 99.05% market share, new adverts have begun to play again. The Citizen’s Commission to “Protect the Truth”, the only independent national youth counter-marketing campaign with demonstrated results in keeping children and teens from smoking, is demanding that the tobacco firms resume payment because ending smoking by American children and teens is crucial to their health and cost of healthcare to our nation (11). Moreover, the adverts themselves, and the message implied, are very concise and factual. There is no attempt to mislead anyone, but only to “infect truth.”
REFERENCES:
1. New York Daily News. Australian Anti-Smoking Campaign draws howls as boy sobs for mommy. New York, New York. http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/04/04/2009-04 04_australian_antismoking_commercial_draws_-1.html.
2. American Cancer Society. Guide to Quitting Smoking. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_13X_Guide_for_Quitting_Smoking.asp
3. British Medical Journal. “Don’t Smoke,” Buy Marlboro. Washington DC: Public Medical Central. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1115680
4. Tate, Peter. The Health Belief Model Explained for Patients. EzineArticles.com.<http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Health-Belief-Model-Explained-for-Patients&id=411478>.
5. University of Georgia. Why Some Anti Smoking Ads Succeed and Others Backfire. ScienceDaily.
7. American Legacy Foundation. Getting to the Truth: Assessing Youths’ Reactions to the “Truth” and “Think. Don’t Smoke” Tobacco Counter-marketing Campaigns. Washington DC: American Legacy Foundation. 2002. p.22
8. New York Times. When Don’t Smoke Means Do. Washington DC: The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/opinion/27mon1.html.
9. American Legacy Foundation. Getting to the Truth: Assessing Youths’ Reactions to the “Truth” and “Think. Don’t Smoke” Tobacco Counter-marketing Campaigns. Washington DC: American Legacy Foundation. 2002. p.18
10. Spivak, Joel and Berman, Michael. “American Legacy Foundation Study shows Philip Morris Think. Don’t Smoke Campaign is a Sham.” Washington DC: Tobacco Free Kids. http:www.tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=499&zoom_highlight=duplicity
11. Citizens’ Commission to Protect the Truth. Truth Campaign Can Save Half a Million Lives and Billions of Dollars. New York, New York. http://www.jointogether.org/news/yourturn/announcements/2009/truth-campaign-can-save-half.html.
12. Wikipedia Encyclopedia. The Truth Campaign.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTruth.com
13. Counsel for Amicus Curaie, National Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Columbia Expert Panel and the Florida “Truth” Campaign. Washington DC. http://www.lungcanceralliance.org/news/documents/ALFAmicusBrief2.pdf
14. The Truth Advertisement. Sunny Side of Truth. Infect Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. New York, New York. http://www.thetruth.com/videos/
15. The Truth Campaign. New York, New York
http://www.protectthetruth.org/truthcampaign.htm
16. The Truth Advertisement. Box of Poison. Infect Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. New York, New York. http://www.thetruth.com/videos/
17. The Truth Advertisement. Baby Invasion. Infect Truth Anti-Smoking Campaign. New York, New York. http://www.thetruth.com/videos/
Labels: Adolescent Health, Cardiovascular Disease, Cultural Issues, Green, Health Communication, Oral Health, Smoking
posted by Christine @ 12:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home