Getting to the Truth: Evaluating National Tobacco Countermarketing Campaigns

This report details the methodology and results of a 2000 study that compares the impact of the American Legacy Foundation's (Legacy) "truth" campaign against Phillip Morris's "Think. Don't Smoke" campaign on the attitudes, beliefs, and intentions of youths (12-17) towards tobacco. The study was conducted using a set of phone interviews, conducted prior to the commencement of the "truth" campaign and then again 10 months into the campaign. The national "truth" campaign grew out of successful similar campaigns in Florida and Massachusetts that were believed to be partially responsible for dramatic declines in youth tobacco usage. The concept behind the "truth" campaign is to market anti-smoking messages as a brand, utilising "edgy" youths, promotional items, street marketing and a website in an effort to target those youths that are most at risk of smoking. It seeks to replace the identity portrayed by tobacco companies with a "truth" alternative identity.

This survey provides evidence for how anti-tobacco communications should be structured to be effective by comparing two different campaigns that presented their messages to youths in very different styles. The "truth" campaign was primarily focused on exposing the advertising and marketing practices of the tobacco industry as opposed to directive "just say no" messages that are the standard fair of anti-tobacco/drug advertising and which were central to Philip-Morris's campaign. The Legacy model is based on the belief that "truth" will change youths' attitudes towards smoking in general and that this will have an effect on their smoking behaviour, thereby constituting an indirect model. The study examined how youths' responses changed towards a variety of attitudinal factors such as the belief that cigarette companies try to get young people to start smoking and that they lie and deny the health risks and addictive nature of smoking. Youths were also questioned about their desire to become involved in anti-smoking efforts as well as whether smoking makes people look cool or whether not smoking is a way to express independence. All of these attitudinal factors were compared with exposure to the two different anti-smoking ads studied and were correlated against actual or expected smoking practices.

The results demonstrate that the way that anti-smoking advertisements are crafted and designed has a dramatic effect on how attitudes shift after exposure. Between the surveys the number of youths who agreed with several attitudes and beliefs that are at the heart of the "truth" campaign changed anywhere from 6.6% - 26.4% in the direction intended by the ads. The strongest attitudinal changes were found in an increased belief that tobacco companies were lying about the health risks of cigarettes and the desire to become involved in anti-smoking efforts. These findings were also dose dependant and those respondents with greater exposure to the campaign were more likely to hold even stronger beliefs on these topics.

A logistic regression analysis confirmed these findings for the "truth" campaign for all but one of the factors, but the results from the Philip Morris "Think. Don't Smoke" ads were radically different. In fact, in many cases, exposure to the Morris ads reduced the odds that a respondent would agree with several of the attitudinal factors and were deemed to be insignificant in many of the others. The Philip Morris campaign reduced the odds that a viewer would believe that cigarette companies lie about the deleterious effects on the smoker's health.

The two different ads were also seen to have differing effects on the intentions of respondents to smoke in the next year. While the "truth" campaign demonstrated a marginal but statistically significant improvement in teens intentions to smoke in the next year, the Philip Morris campaign actually increased the likelihood of tobacco use. The study found that some of the attitudes that were being developed by the "truth" campaign were more or less related to intentions not to smoke. The strongest relations were observed between the statements "I want to be involved with efforts to get rid of cigarette smoking", and "Taking a stand against tobacco is important to me." Apparently those messages that are designed to encourage an active role in the campaign against tobacco are the most effective in reducing the likelihood of smoking.

The authors believe that the "truth" campaign resonates much more strongly with youths than the "Think. Don't Smoke" campaign, and it was successful in changing youth attitudes towards both the tobacco industry and smoking. The authors also believe that the Phillip Morris campaigns are actually designed to draw attention away from tobacco company marketing practices and are an effort to buy respectability for the industry rather than have a positive impact on youth smoking behaviour. The Philip Morris ads also run counter to the work of the Columbia Expert Panel on youth tobacco counter-marketing that advises against directive campaigns that tell youths not to smoke and attempt to suggest that tobacco is only for adults.

It becomes apparent then that the indirect strategy of the "truth" campaign is an essential part of its success. Youths respond better to communications that provide opportunities for them to become empowered and assert their independence; this is often best achieved by setting up challenges to established practices and organisations such as the tobacco industry. Addressing the industry rather than the behaviour itself changes the dynamic of the response towards an actual behaviour. The authors suggest that this research would probably benefit even further from a psychological analysis of how such campaigns that put a face to a "social problem" actually work in the minds of youth respondents. Nevertheless, this study provides evidence of how social movements such as this one can shape their communications strategies.