Project 1
1. In the past, Big Tobacco fooled the general public into believing they’re just another industry providing a safe consumable good. But that has changed now that secret internal tobacco industry documents have been leaked to the public. The truth’s goal is to provide honest and dependable information about the tobacco industry and how they manipulate their products. They are not anti-smoking or anti-smoker, they just want to educate young people. And to make sure everyone gets the unfiltered, unadulterated facts about tobacco. So every smoker and non-smoker can agree on one thing: they know what’s up.
1. In the past, Big Tobacco fooled the general public into believing they’re just another industry providing a safe consumable good. But that has changed now that secret internal tobacco industry documents have been leaked to the public. The truth’s goal is to provide honest and dependable information about the tobacco industry and how they manipulate their products. They are not anti-smoking or anti-smoker, they just want to educate young people. And to make sure everyone gets the unfiltered, unadulterated facts about tobacco. So every smoker and non-smoker can agree on one thing: they know what’s up.
2. The 8 P’s of marketing
Product: tobacco, smoking and other nicotine products
Promotion: tobacco kills – “The idea isn’t to tell teens
they’re gonna die, but to show how tobacco companies exploit this illusion for
their own benefit.”
Policy: policy changes have been put in place such as: no
smoking in public places like restaurants, school, office buildings, downtown
areas, etc, which makes it more difficult for smokers to continue their habit.
Place: as far as you can reach/the world – tobacco kills
1200 people a day so the intention of this campaign is to stop this and reach
beyond this number
Publics: target future smokes such as teenagers and current
smokers – plus the tobacco companies who sell the product
Partnership: Fuse, Virgin Mobile, Vans, Warped Tour,
Screamfest, Cosmo Girl and Ball4Real
Purse Strings: cigarettes are now $7.60 a pack in Vermont so
this is what you would save per pack if you quit smoking.
3. Evaluation results showed that the strategy of listening
to the target audience about what would be most appealing and effective paid
off. A study researching the impact of the campaign on national smoking rates
among youths in the U.S. found the campaign accounted for a significant portion
of the decline in youth smoking prevalence. Between 1999 and 2002 Truth was
credited with preventing almost 300,000 teens from smoking. The study also
found that the prevalence rate was 1.5% lower than it would have been in the
absence of the campaign.
The American
Legacy Foundation, Legacy for Health put out a fact sheet which includes
plethora of information ranging from their philosophy, to the social media they
used. There is a section about the target audience and strategy, brief
overviews of the campaign’s major creative executions to date, and lastly a
section about the results of the truth campaign, and how it actually changed
the attitudes and behaviors of teens and tobacco use.
Stuart
Elliot of the New York Times wrote an article in 2010 about one of the
effective commercials put out by the truth campaign. It stated that it was
first aired during the Superbowl February 1st 2004 and aired twice
during The Real World in 2010.
Medscape
news put out an article in 2005, discussing the possibility of the Truth
campaign losing its funding despite a new study that showed the campaign was directly
responsible for declines in youth smoking rates. It states that
“According to a study in the March issue of
APHA's American Journal of Public Health, the American Legacy Foundation's
"truth" campaign is not only associated with a decline in youth
smoking, but it actually accelerated such declines. Truth is a hard-hitting
media campaign that uses edgy television, radio and print ads featuring
youth-led activism against tobacco companies and exposing the industry's
deceptive marketing techniques.”
5.The Truth campaign utilizes traditional media through
billboards, posters, magazine ads, radio commercials, and through their
partnership with Virgin Mobil (which promotes the campaign upon purchase of a
track phone). Digitally the campaign runs television commercials on channels
with a high percentage of young viewers (MTV, BET, USA, ABC Family, VH1, and
Fuse TV), they also promote their campaign through their website www.thetruth.com and
by utilizing large corporate cinemas. In the United States a total of 17,606
theaters in all 50 states played or promoted a commercial from the Truth
campaign. Social marketing has also been utilized in this campaign which
participates on Myspace, Zanga, Bebo, Facebook, Piczo and Hi5. The campaign
also follows music tours, events, and festivals to get their ideas out to
younger generations attending these events, and through public displays on the
dangers of tobacco and about the companies making/selling the cigarettes.
The most effective channel through with the Truth campaign
is reaching kids is through their television advertisements, the tours they
follow, and through social networking sites. It is interesting to note that
some of the social networking sights have a bigger return for the campaign and
others have less effect for it. (Interestingly they are not on instagram…maybe
they should be!)
