This resource corresponds to Day 4.
- Target
young people in grades six and nine (ages 11 and 15). These years define critical periods in most children's social
development, times when many young people change schools
and peer groups.
- Target
adults with complementary, noncontradictory messages. In a comprehensive strategy, media messages that inevitably
spill over from one audience to another can be mutually
reinforcing and synergistic. Clean indoor air messages
can provide added motivation for adults to quit smoking.
Cessation messages for adults can affect young people's
perception of norms and highlight the problem of addiction.
Prevention messages for young people can increase the salience
of the tobacco issue among parents and community leaders.
- Highlight
nonsmoking as the majority behavior.
Most young people overestimate the number of their peers who use
tobacco. Campaigns should seek to correct this misperception and
highlight an increasing "problem" of kids who smoke.
- Present
realistic tobacco-free lifestyles as
practiced by diverse, appealing, and interesting persons.
Youth behaviors are driven by how young people perceive
the behaviors of people like them. Having a repertoire
of social choices is a fundamental need for teens, who
are going through a period of profound social and environmental
transition.
- Provide
constructive alternatives to tobacco use and discourage
destructive alternatives. Sports and other youth-oriented
activities associated with the tobacco-free lifestyle can
provide some of that positive social repertoire.
- Communicate
the relevant dangers of
tobacco. Certain dangers of tobacco, if explained in a
creative and memorable manner, resonate with young people-for
example, addiction portrayed as a loss of control, the
carcinogenicity of environmental tobacco smoke, the toxic
chemicals in tobacco products and smoke, and the tangible
suffering and visible disfigurement from tobacco-related
diseases. Communicate health messages through personal
testimonies (tell a story) and creative executions that
break through young people's sense of immortality and their
(and adults') resistance to traditional health messages.
- Encourage
youth empowerment and control. Teens need to be offered information and anecdotal experience
from which they can begin to understand the world and take
control of their own lives.
- Abandon
the search for the "magic-bullet" message. There is no single best motivator for preventing or reducing
tobacco use. Campaign messages for both young people and
adults should feature a variety of themes, appeals (fear,
humor, satire, testimonials, etc.), and executional styles.
Maximize the number, variety, and novelty of messages rather
than communicating a few messages repeatedly.
- Use
multiple nonpreachy voices. Not only do different
teens require different appeals and creative executions,
but diversity of messages is itself a sophisticated message.
Teens strongly reject attempts by anyone to dominate or
direct them. Messages about industry manipulation, if they
are to be relevant and acceptable to youth, should be delivered
by nonauthoritarian sources (such as Florida's "Truth" campaign
teenagers), not with melodramatic appeals. Avoid highlighting
a single theme, tagline, identifier, or sponsor.
- Use
a complementary, reinforcing mix of television, radio,
print, and outdoor advertising. The campaign should
also explore the various alternative media options available
(e.g., movie trailers, the Internet, other computer resources,
video games, materials for schools and community groups).
The media mix is especially important in view of today's
proliferating fragmented media market.
- Involve
parents and families in activities that will reduce
risk factors and promote protective factors for young people
at risk for tobacco use. Parents and other family members
have substantial influence on the perceptions and behaviors
of young people.
- Maximize
use of existing high-quality media materials produced
by the government, voluntary agencies, and a number of
individual states. (A new, high-quality television spot
commonly costs more than $100,000 to produce.) A large
collection of advertisements is currently avail-able through
the CDC's Media Campaign Re-source Center for Tobacco Control.
The cost of placing an advertisement will vary significantly
by state and media market.
- Include
grassroots promotions, local media advocacy, event sponsorships,
and other community tie-ins to support and reinforce
the counteradvertising campaign (see "Media Advocacy," earlier
in this chapter). Work in concert with other interventions
to promote policies that aim to change social norms regarding
tobacco. A local "look" for local media messages
(e.g., featuring people of ethnic or geographic representation
similar to the viewing audience) appears to be more important
for adults than for youth, because young people tend to
share and be shaped by a more universal, multiethnic youth "media
world."
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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