This article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer describes how the spots are selected and the results obtained in Washington State.
Anti-smoking ads turn off young viewers
And that's exactly what the state intends them to do
Last updated September 19, 2007 11:27 p.m. PT
By CHERIE BLACK
P-I REPORTER
Behind a one-way mirror, adults watched anxiously as the first child was ushered into the room.
The student from McKnight Middle School in Renton sat in front of a television set to view six commercials urging his age group -- 12- to 14-year-olds -- not to smoke or chew tobacco.
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The boy, wearing glasses and a yellow shirt, thought the ads were funny. One was weird, he said. But they made him never want to start smoking.
Linda Casey, a brand consultant who conducted the focus groups of children and helped create the ads, smiled. That's exactly the reaction she -- and the other representatives of Washington's tobacco prevention program behind the mirror -- wanted.
She hopes the commercials, which begin airing Tuesday throughout Washington, will get preteens and teenagers to see smoking as so bad and unhealthy that they never want to start.
The ad campaign is one component of the state Health Department's partnership with the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, which has helped slash the youth smoking rate statewide by 50 percent since its inception in 2000.
Despite the state's success, the department estimates that 45 young people in Washington still start smoking every day. There's an inexplicable rise in numbers of smokers between eighth and 10th grade, even though the percentage dropped. Cigars and flavored cigarettes are becoming more popular among high-schoolers.
"You want youth to never start, but every year there are new 12- to 14-year-olds," said state Health Secretary Mary Selecky. "We need new messages" each year.
Concept meetings and focus groups have been in the works since early in the year. Last month, two focus groups held in Seattle and Spokane screened rough cuts of six commercials to 25 kids deemed at risk to start using tobacco. Each watched the ads, then gave feedback. To participate, each was paid $40, and their parents were paid $20. The children's comments could change an ad or eliminate it.
"The biggest concern is getting their attention," Casey said. "You're never going to hit everyone, so if we can get the base level message across, it's good."
In 1998, Washington received $320 million as part of a settlement with the tobacco industry, $100 million of which was used to create a tobacco control program to discourage people from smoking and help current smokers quit.
The first set of commercials targeting youths ran in Washington in the fall of 2000. At first they were ads from other states, and the message showed smoking as socially unappealing. The next year, the state developed its own ads specific to Washington kids, narrowed the target group to middle-school children and changed the focus to be partly a social message and partly about health risks.
In Seattle, 13 kids watched the "No Stank You" messages, an extension of last's year's successful brand campaign of quirky ads extolling the dangers of smoking.
The ads run on channels such as MTV and during shows such as "American Idol" and "The Simpsons," and included Auburn High School cheerleaders and members of the swim team. Each spot ends with a way to get a free T-shirt online to draw them to the NoStankYou.comWeb site.
This year, one commercial about cigar smoking and two about chewing tobacco have been added to help curb the rise in those areas.
The chew ads, titled "Chew Pool" and universally described as gross by the girls in the focus groups and funny by the boys, begin with a shot of a boy's lip filled with chewing tobacco. Zoom in to three men lounging in the brown pool of spit and chew inside the boy's mouth. They participate in various activities only a teenager could find funny, including farting contests, but ultimately realize tobacco is disgusting in someone's mouth.
Other ads included students holding balloons that look like healthy pink lungs, and being uncomfortable when a friend walked up with a wilted, black smoker lung balloon and very old-looking cheerleaders (actually played by rather unattractive men), who show how smoking can make you look old.
"I don't want to be ugly," was one 13-year-old girl's reaction after seeing the ad during a focus group.
One week after the focus groups, Selecky sat in a conference room in Tumwater, across the hall from her office, to view the commercials herself. She has final say on which ads will run. She saw five of the six ads the children saw. The cigar ad was the least favorite during the focus groups and was being revamped.
She gave suggestions and asked that some things be changed. Two ads had bad sound quality, so she said she would wait until she heard those better before deciding.
After screening the commercials, she said, "The Legislature puts us to a standard that says 'prove to us you're making a difference.' There are very few states who have been able to sustain the progress we have, and we are making a difference.
AT A GLANCE
50%
Drop in the youth smoking rate since the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program began in 2000. Statewide, about 65,000 fewer youths smoke and 20 fewer youths begin smoking each day, since 2000.
INSIDE: One woman's struggle to quit smoking. A17
P-I reporter Cherie Black can be reached at 206-448-8180 or [email protected].
� 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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