This
resource corresponds to Day 4.
A
group of 11 CDC-funded university-based Prevention Research Centers
conducted a series of focus groups during 1996-1997 to explore
potentially effective counteradvertising strategies and messages.
The centers showed teenagers different tobacco prevention advertisements
to stimulate feedback and discussion. The following is a brief
summary of their findings. (Please note: This is only one example
of a focus group summary, and other studies may draw different
conclusions.)
- Without
an overall context provided by ongoing advertising and other
program elements, the message that tobacco companies are manipulating
young people to smoke ("they're lying to you") has
relatively low interest and salience among teens and may be
miscomprehended.
- Attempts
to explain the concept of nicotine addiction and make it personally
relevant for young nonsmokers is difficult because most have
not experienced the physical cravings of addiction and tend
to take messages literally.
- The
television spot shown to the most focus groups (about physical
performance and featuring the U.S. Women's National Soccer
Team) was easily understood, attention getting, and credible
and may be generalizable (with some effort) to nonathletic
endeavors.
- Young
people did not like advertisements that feature text.
- Young
people, particularly whites, were sharply critical of any advertisement
they perceived as corny, "cute," staged, or unhip.
- As
advertising professionals have reported in the research literature,
humor was found to be a double-edged sword: it can be very
effective, but if used inappropriately can be seen as trivializing
the issue. In some focus groups, humorous advertisements obtained
both the highest and the lowest scores.
- Young
people reacted emotionally and favorably to true, nonpreachy
stories about the impact of smoking on a person's or family
member's life (such as a television spot from California featuring
a man whose wife had died from exposure to his smoking).
- Cartoons
tend to have low "stopping power" because teens have
seen so many, whereas the use of surprising characters like
animals (such as the "Animals" and "Butts" spots
from Minnesota) can rivet attention. These attention-getting
spots do not necessarily communicate an effective countermessage,
however.
- Messages
that portray the negative social effects of tobacco use perform
well among teens; messages that focus on health effects can
be effective if they are presented dramatically but realistically
(such as a California spot featuring a laryngectomy patient
smoking a cigarette).
*Findings
from 11 Prevention Research Centers. Excerpted
from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reducing
Tobacco Use: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, Georgia:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health,
2000.
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