This unorthodox anti-smoking campaign takes aim at teens, encouraging making good choices decisions and not mentioning tobacco. WATCH the 3 spots on YouTube. I must admit they do not resonate much with me but I am not the target :) Of course there is also the website. Still...
Unorthodox anti-smoking campaign takes aim at teens - Denver Post
Unorthodox anti-smoking campaign takes aim at teens, encouraging making good choices decisions and not mentioning tobacco.
February 12, 2007
By Julie Dunn,
Denver Post Staff Writer
An unconventional new public education campaign created by Denver's Cactus Marketing Communications aims to stop teens from starting smoking - by not mentioning smoking.
The strategy behind "Own Your C" is to encourage 12- to 18-year-olds to make good decisions, then let them make their own choices about such things as tobacco use.
"Kids know that cigarettes are bad for you; that's out there already," said Joseph Conrad, strategic director at Cactus. "We wanted to take it to the next level."
The State Tobacco Education & Prevention Partnership, a division of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, is spending $1.9 million on the year-long campaign, which launched last fall. The money comes from the more than $26 million that Colorado took in from the 2004 state tobacco excise tax. Of that, 50 percent must be spent on youth tobacco programs.
In comparison, tobacco companies spend $4 million per week on advertising in Colorado, according to Jodi Kopke, media director for STEPP.
The health department likes the campaign for its broad, positive message, she said.
"It is a different approach," said Kopke. "But in order to be relevant, we needed to get away from the more traditional campaigns and recognize that this is a whole new audience we're reaching out to. It has to look like all other things that are going on in that marketplace."
Nationally, Colorado is one of the top 10 states in terms of funding programs to protect kids from tobacco, according for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Lung Association. But the AMA gave the state a failing grade last year for the access youth have to tobacco. Twenty percent of Colorado teens smoke, compared with 17 percent of adults, according to the state health department.
"We wanted to create something that had that 'cool factor,"' said Norm Shearer, creative director at Cactus. "Teenagers are such a savvy audience, we didn't want to seem like we were speaking down to them or preaching."
The quirky "Own Your C" television ads are running on networks popular with teens, including Comedy Central and MTV.
"Some of the commercials are kind of hard to understand at first, but I think it's a good approach because it's at their level," said Nancy Mickelson, who runs anti-smoking programs at Wheat Ridge High School.
The campaign also has a large online component. The website, ownyourc.com, features forums on everything from tobacco use to music, plus downloadable cellphone ring tones. More than 3,000 Colorado teens have registered on the site; it has attracted more than 100,000 unique visitors since September.
Another major component is the C-Ride, a mobile kiosk that has been making the rounds at Colorado schools, malls and other events that attract teens - like last week's Detention Urban Rail Jam in Fort Collins. There, Cactus street team members handed out swag like T-shirts, knit caps and smoking-cessation kits that contain tobacco-less snuff and "quit journals."
Wheat Ridge senior Katie Teece said she was impressed by the C-Ride when it visited her school last month.
"Everybody likes the T-shirts. They have really cool designs, so a lot of people are wearing them," said Teece, who said she quit smoking last year. "I like that (the ads) don't just talk about how tobacco is bad. They're about how you have to stick up for your choices."
Staff writer Julie Dunn can be reached at 303-954-1592 or at [email protected].
Colorado STEPP 'Own Your C' campaign:
Comments