SOS launches another youth activity, yawn.

A major aspect the tobacco industry uses to justify marketing and promotion of a deadly addictive drug is that consumers make a responsible adult choice.  In litigation, when victims have sued, almost invariably the argument industry takes is that you can’t be sure tobacco killed you and even if it did you knew better and chose to smoke.  I mean we’ve had this warning on the pack since 1965.  What were you thinking?

Phillip Morris funds ostensible tobacco prevention programs to keep kids from starting to smoke with the message that smoking is a choice only an adult should make.  Can you think of a better way to get kids to smoke?  It’s an adult choice.  So what if most smokers make that choice a few years early?  The tremendous capacity for nicotine to addict is fairly much a neglected aspect of the product.  It’s all about choosing.

And along comes the latest Stamp Out Smoking essay contest.  The theme this year is My Reason to Write.  Students are encouraged to write a letter thanking someone for their smoke free example or encouraging someone to quit.  Notice anything?  It’s all about choosing. In fact, the heading of the page says “We can all say NO to tobacco.” 

Undoubtedly we’ll see the same tired pleadings to addicted family members and blustering pledges to never start so they can make the team.  In fact one of the suggestions is to organize a pledge drive.  (I would welcome any legitimate research able to show that no smoking pledges are worth any more than the paper they are printed on.)  In the first case the focus is on a role model in their lives.  They may be an addict but they are still role models so something must be OK about nicotine.  In the second instance, the industry line about choice being the significant aspect of smoking is parroted.  Success with youth focused tobacco control programs are often frustratingly short term.  With efforts like this it is no wonder.

I am fond of saying that tobacco has not been a benign weed by the side of the road for 400 years.  But this is what is depicted when young people are told that the individual's choice to be tobacco free will make the difference.  In the tips for parents and teachers on how to talk to kids about tobacco nowhere is the tobacco industry mentioned.  Nowhere does it say that tobacco marketing, promotion, and public use are the result of multi-national corporations’ demand for profit. Instead these talking points would have us believe that being tobacco free was like choosing one cereal over the other for breakfast.  Characterizing the issue like this makes it seem that smoking is a normal part of their day, they shouldn’t do it, but it's normal.  When the very opposite should be our message.

In 1996 Dr. Stanton Glantz wrote in the American Journal of Public Health, 

“Finally, the public health community should realize that the best way to keep kids from smoking is to reduce tobacco consumption among every one.  The message should not be “we don’t want kids to smoke”; it should be “we want a smoke-free society.”  As the tobacco industry knows well kids want to be like adults, and reducing smoking sends a strong message to kids about social norms.”

That was 16 years ago.  Dr. Glantz spoke at the CTFA conference just last week.  Was anybody  responsible for this campaign there?  Have they ever been?  It is bad enough to have Burson Marsteller’s only U.S. based affiliate paid to run campaigns like this. The revolving door of personnel without actual tobacco control experience in the TPCP program makes ineffective messaging like this even more unfortunate.

Effective, Evidence Based Messaging

The December edition of the journal Adolescent Health includes an important study regarding effective messaging for tobacco initiation. The paper, The Perception of Secondhand Smoke Risks Predict Future Adolescent Smoking Initiation , concludes that “perceptions of personal second-hand smoke risks and parental second-hand smoke risks significantly deterred adolescent smoking initiation”. This current research may not be novel but it is impressive in showing that perceptions about the dangers of secondhand smoke have triple the effect on smoking initiation among youth compared to peers’ smoking. And this conclusion is revealing because focusing on peer pressure is a mainstay of industry funded campaigns ostensibly aimed at reducing youth addiction to nicotine. The 2007 CDC Best Practices on Health Communication Interventions cites research showing that these campaigns not only are ineffective they actually can increase youth initiation (p 32). The Best Practices also notes that the most effective media campaigns created a negative reaction to the tobacco industry itself (p 34).

Those campaigns reliant on no evidence base will not be interested in this. But sincere efforts at reducing smoking prevalence in Arkansas can take advantage of this research to fashion campaigns that will not only be effective but also can be crafted to work toward rectifying seriously flawed clean indoor air laws.

Currently Arkansas’ Stamp Out Smoking tobacco prevention media is capitalizing on the recent state and federal tobacco tax increases to promote the 1-800 QUIT NOW cessation services. This may well be justified for a time but should not miss opportunities for long term effective tobacco prevention policies.

Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, the firm that holds the SOS account, has in the past cited market research showing a high degree of brand recognition as evidence of a successful campaign. In 2008 CJRW announced it was becoming an affiliate of the PR monolith Burson Marsteller. With longtime ties to the tobacco industry, BM is responsible for creating the National Smokers’ Alliance and the Accommodation Program as front groups to oppose tobacco taxes and clean indoor air laws.

This tremendous conflict of interest becomes most suspicious when media campaigns do not take advantage of evidence based research for effective prevention. At some point attention should be given to the differences between effective branding and effectively reducing the influences of the tobacco industry on our communities.