truth® or Consequences News Coverage
Outreach to local media channels within the target communities help ensure that various audiences are aware of this critical intervention to prevent youth tobacco use.
Anti-smoking ads hit local stations
A series of "hard-hitting" anti-smoking ads on local TV stations uses bleak imagery to influence teenagers.
One ad in the "truth" smoking prevention campaign features a cowboy who removes a bandanna from his neck to reveal a hole from a laryngectomy, according to a news release from the American Legacy Foundation.
The cowboy, using a hand-held electronic voice box, begins singing a song with the opening line, "You don't always die from tobacco." The commercial concludes with the message: "Over 8.5 million Americans live with tobacco-related illnesses. "The ads will run through Sept. 3, according to Patricia McLaughlin, a foundation spokeswoman.
The foundation is funding the campaign with a $3.6 million matching grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. McLaughlin said about $70,000 to $80,000 will be spent on the campaign in Idaho. According to the foundation, 15.8 percent of Idaho's high school students and nearly 20 percent of Washington teens smoke.
McLaughlin said the TV ads will run during programs popular with teens, including "King of the Hill," "Mad TV," "The Simpsons," "Smallville" and "Family Guy."
2/13/2007
AFL creates program to prevent smoking
If you never start you don’t have to quit.
That is the premise of the American Legacy Foundation, which is funded by money from the tobacco industry. The ALF has announced a program to increase advertising targeting young Nebraskans in hopes of preventing them from smoking.
North Platte, along with Hastings and Kearney, will be among areas in 17 other states and 38 cities in the country selected in an attempt to counter a $41 million annual marketing campaign by the tobacco industry that encourages smoking. A $3.6 million matching grant from U.S. centers for Disease Congrl and Prevention will fund an increase of “truth advertising” in the area.
“Stopping teen smoking is one of the most important things we can do to give our children a safe and healthy future,” said Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning. “This grant helps us encourage kids across the state to make good choices today for a healthier and brighter tomorrow.”
The “truth campaign” has become the largest youth prevention program in the country and has helped reduce smoking rates, according to Nicole Dye-Anderson of ALF.
Using print, radio, the Internet, and television, especially youth-oriented outlets such as MTV and the WB, “truth” is credited with reducing smoking rates among students in grades 8, 10 and 12.
“We will never be able to match Big Tobacco’s spending on marketing,” said ALF president and chief executive officer, Cheryl Healton. “We know the ‘truth’ campaign is an effective counter-marketing effort, to contend with the $41 million the tobacco industry spends – every day – to encourage Americans to smoke its addictive products.”
In Nebraska, 21.8 percent of high school students currently smoke, and many of them, experimenting with smoking leads to a life-long addiction making them vulnerable to tobacco-related diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and stroke.
A television ad called “Singing Cowboy” will air on stations in the targeted areas in March. The ad opens with a man dressed as a cowboy who strums his guitar to get people’s attention. The cowboy removes the bandana around his neck to reveal a hole in his throat from a laryngectomy. He begins singing. “You don’t always die from tobacco” with the help of a electro larynx, (a hand-held voice box.)
The grassroots “truth” campaign allows teenagers to make informed choices by telling it like it is about the tobacco industry and its products and exposing marketing tactics, Anderson said.
CDC funds for 2007 are being matched 2.3 to 1 by the ALF. The Federal share of the money for the first year of the three-year grant is 30 percent, $1.2 million of the total funds for the campaign. Approximately $2.8 million is provided by ALF, which receives all of its funding from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and attorney generals in 46 states and five U.S. territories.
While the American Journal of Public Health published research crediting the “truth” campaign with a 22 percent decline in youth smoking in the campaigns first two years, in December 2006, the University of Michigan reported in its annual health findings that a decline in daily smoking among teenagers has ended. Eighty percent of smokers start before they are 18 years old.
02/24/2007