truth® Wants to Know: “Do You Have What it Takes?”

5/28/2009

New Campaign Explores Decisions Made by the Tobacco Industry, Impact on Americans

Washington, DC, May 28, 2009 – Each and every day in America, 1,200 people die from tobacco-related diseases – from heart disease and cancers, to emphysema and strokes. The latest advertising campaign from the truth^® youth smoking prevention campaign explores the kinds of decisions tobacco industry executives undertake – decisions that make for a successful, but deadly business.

The ad campaign, called Do You Have What It Takes? asks real-life job-seekers whether they would be willing to participate in the types of decisions and situations that tobacco industry executives have made or encountered. The new campaign rolls out at the end of May with television, print, cinema and online advertisements, along with a new Web site and social-networking elements.

Despite the national recession, the tobacco industry remains a very profitable and stable industry. However, even with economic hardship, recent research studies find — if given the choice — many Americans would choose not to work in the industry and already have a negative opinion of the tobacco industry. A recent survey, conducted by the American Legacy Foundation and Harris Interactive, revealed that:

82% of teens aged 13-18 would not work for a tobacco company. (Legacy Media Tracking Online, Winter 2008/2009)
71% of them would like to see the cigarette companies go out of business. (LMTO)
75% of teens polled said they believed that cigarette companies lie. (LMTO)
76% think that cigarette companies should not be allowed to sell a product that harms people. (LMTO)
79% of teens agreed that cigarette companies want teens to believe that smoking is cool. (LMTO)
71% of the teens surveyed felt that cigarette companies do not care whether or not young people smoke. (LMTO)

The Legacy survey — fielded online in late 2007 — surveyed more than 1,800 teens across the country.

Additionally, according to a separate Harris Interactive poll: the tobacco industry maintained its position from last year as one of the least reputable industries in America. For 2009, the industry was joined at the bottom (11%) in a tie with the troubled financial services industry. (Harris Interactive RQ survey)

“These negative associations with the tobacco industry are a powerful driver of preventing young people from ever starting to smoke,” remarked Cheryl G. Healton, Dr. P.H., president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation^®, the national public health foundation which directs and funds the truth^® campaign.

“With nearly 80 percent of teens starting to smoke before the age of 18, tobacco industry marketing efforts can still have a hugely powerful impact on teens’ lives. The truth^® campaign was designed to educate and inform teens about tobacco use, to help them ask questions and make good decisions. Survey data like this adds to a growing body of research that shows the messages and appeals behind the campaign are working – by making teens more aware of the impact the tobacco industry can have on their daily lives.”

Along with the court of public opinion, a court of law recently weighed in on the behavior of the tobacco industry. A May 22 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a lower court decision finding that the industry engaged in a pattern of widespread fraud and deception — with deadly health effects for the American public — for a period of more than 50 years. The three-judge panel found “the [lower] court had before it sufficient evidence from which to conclude that Defendants’ executives, who directed the activities for the Defendant corporations and their joint entities, knew about the negative health consequences of smoking, the addictiveness and manipulation of nicotine, the harmfulness of secondhand smoke and the concept of smoker compensation, which makes light cigarettes no less harmful than regular cigarettes and possibly more.”

The ruling continued: “The Government presented evidence indicating that specific high-ranking corporate officials were directly informed about these matters, as well as evidence of pervasive knowledge and acceptance of these propositions throughout the Defendant organizations,” a reference to specific tobacco companies and entities named in the lawsuit.

“With this decision, decades of deceptive marketing practices leading to massive disease and death have finally come home to roost for the tobacco industry,” said Dr. Healton at the time of the ruling. “Our latest advertising campaign shines a light on some of those practices, as a way to educate teens about this life or death issue and get them to think about the consequences of using tobacco.”

The Do You Have What it Takes? campaign will run throughout the summer months, complementing truth®’s tenth annual summer grassroots tour. The tour – visiting more than 30 states – will get underway in late June.

Do You Have What it Takes? – BACKGROUND and DETAILS

For its latest advertising campaign, truth^® set up a mock recruiting office in New York City and invited real-life job seekers to interview for executive-level positions. Once in the interview, the candidates were questioned by a trained improvisational actor posing as the recruiter. The interactions were recorded by hidden cameras and, though many of the questions were scripted, the reactions of the candidates were real.

The different television advertisements reveal people’s reactions to being asked how they would handle a variety of situations relating to the tobacco industry. Some of the situations included:

whether they had a problem with selling a product that kills 1200 people every day.
whether they thought changing the name of the company was a reasonable way to avoid bad publicity .
if they could “plead the Fifth”. The interviewer then informs the job candidate that a tobacco industry executive pleaded the Fifth Amendment 97 times during a deposition in 1997.
whether they had qualms about selling a product that kills someone every 6.5 seconds.

CAMPAIGN ELEMENTS:

VIDEO

The live-action TV spots that will be seen at launch will be:

The spot opens in an office with an interviewer talking to a candidate. The interviewer asks the candidate if he ever has had to spin any bad news about a company. The candidate responds that he’s been in positions where he has had to share news that was less than positive. The interviewer gives an example of an article, which came out recently, that said a certain product could potentially kill one billion people this century, and then asked the candidate what he could do with information like that. The candidate looks flabbergasted and comments that the one-billion number represents 17 percent of the world’s population.

The 5th

The spot opens in an office with an interviewer talking to a candidate. The interviewer says that he may have a position opening that might require the candidate to “plead the Fifth.” He gives an example and asks the candidate where she got her shirt. She responds that she “pleads the Fifth.” The interviewer also asks where she went last weekend and she gives the same response. The interviewer goes on to share with the candidate the fact that in 1997 one tobacco executive “pleaded the Fifth” 97 times in a deposition. The candidate looks at him like he’s crazy and asks if that was really true.

Big Business

The spot opens in an office with an interviewer talking to a candidate. The interviewer impresses the candidate with his description of a potential opening for a job in a successful industry that spends 13 billion dollars in the United States alone on marketing a year. He then goes on to say that, worldwide, the industry’s products kill 5 million people annually. The interviewer describes the great benefits package but is interrupted by the candidate saying with disgust, “You snuck in, ‘it kills people’; I heard that.”

Each spot ends with the campaign’s central question: “Do you have what it takes to be a tobacco executive?”

CINEMA ADVERTISING:

The Big Business spot will debut exclusively in cinemas, prior to movies popular with teens. The spot will launch in Screenvision theaters nationwide on May 29. Big Business will air in cinemas in 38 additional regional markets through funding from a three-year, $3.6 million matching grant from the CDC, which increases the reach of the campaign to a broader range of youth, including young people in surrounding smaller communities that typically have less exposure to the campaign because of low cable television penetration.

CAMPAIGN TIMING AND MEDIA:

The campaign will run from June 2009 through early 2010, with a hiatus from November 2009 to January 2010.

Two spots — PR and The 5^th — will roll out on TV on June 1^st, while Big Business will roll out on TV at the beginning of July. Do You Have What it Takes? television advertisements will appear on channels and programs popular with youth like MTV, G4, VH1 and fuse, among others.

PRINT ADVERTISING:

Print ads for the campaign graphically illustrate the consequences of the selling of a deadly product. The ads depict laboratory jars containing organs and body parts, with labels explaining the contents such as, “The stones to say that cigarettes are only as addictive as sugar, salt and Internet access.” In the lower right hand corner appears the question: “Do you have what it takes to be a Tobacco Executive?” Four different print layouts will appear in magazines popular with the truth® campaign’s target audience, including Alternative Press, TransWorld Snowboarder & Skateboarder and Rides.

WEB AND INTERACTIVE:

thetruth.com Web site will mirror the job interview concept. When visitors first arrive at the site, they will be greeted by a recruiter asking a series of multiple-choice questions. As the user interacts with the questions, online games and videos, the Web site keeps track of the user’s score to encourage visitors to re-try games, or re-take tests to top their old score. At the conclusion, the recruiter comments on the performance, assessing whether the user “has what it takes” to work for Big Tobacco.
Additional elements that can be found on thetruth.com include games like the Urea Collector Game, which draws attention to the fact that there’s urea in cigarettes. In this game, cats roam about the screen urinating; visitors are challenged to sop up the puddles before the puddles touch each other. The simple game gets more challenging the better players perform.
Online banner advertisements will be featured on Web sites like WWE (a wrestling-related site) and WildTangent and UGO – both gaming sites – as well as popular social-networking sites like MySpace and Bebo. Furthermore, truth^®content will be made available to such Web aggregate sites as VideoEgg, which will in turn serve the content through third-party sites like JamboTV, IGN and Kongregate
truth^® maintains a strong presence on social networks and the profile pages on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Hi-5 and imeem.com will all reflect the campaign creative and include things like polls and photos. A poll widget — launching in mid-June — will include questions that were conducted during the online interview process for the television spots. The truth^® YouTube director’s channel will show exclusive videos of behind-the-scenes clips from the commercial shoot; the video will also be available on the truth.com Web site.

TALENT, DIRECTION AND PRODUCTION:

Mike Rock, an actor and writer in Los Angeles, plays the interviewer in the commercials. Rock spent several years in New York City where he acted off-off-Broadway; founded, produced & performed with New York Comedysportz; began writing, acting & producing sketch comedy with his group "The Bert Fershners" (Comedy Central, MTV, VH-1, etc.); and acted in numerous TV commercials & voice-overs.

Henry-Alex Rubin directed the spots. Rubin produced “Freestyle,” which won Best Documentary at the Woodstock and Urbanworld Film Festivals. In addition, he co-directed Murderball, which won the Audience Award, a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, and was short-listed for an Academy Award in 2005.

Do You Have What it Takes? was developed by Arnold Worldwide of Boston, in conjunction with the American Legacy Foundation.

BACKGROUND ON THE truth^®CAMPAIGN

truth^®, launched in February 2000, is the largest national youth smoking prevention campaign and the only national campaign not directed by the tobacco industry. The campaign exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking. truth^® allows teens to make informed choices about tobacco use by giving them the facts about the industry and its products.

The American Legacy Foundation^® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth^®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.americanlegacy.org/.

The American Legacy Foundation^® is equipped with a VideoLink ReadyCam™ television studio system, providing you with faster, easier access to the nation’s leading tobacco prevention and cessation experts. From this in-house broadcast studio, Legacy can offer immediate access to its experts to comment on breaking news, new research publications, or any news related to youth smoking prevention, adult quit smoking programs, or any issue related to smoking. The studio is connected directly to the Vyvx fiber network and is always available for live or pre-taped interviews. To arrange an interview using the ReadyCam, please contact Julia Cartwright at 202-454-5596.

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Contact: Patricia McLaughlin, 202-454-5561, pmclaughlin@americanlegacy.org; Trish O’Callaghan, 215-525-1101, pocallaghan@ad-itive.com