Tobacco Topics : Counter-Marketing

Did You Know?

The Tobacco industry must recruit at least 3,000 children per day as "replacement smokers", to replace their customers who have quit or died. They do this with advertising.

Background

In 2001, Cigarette companies spent $11.2 billion or more than $30 million per day, on advertising and promotional expenses. This amounted to more than $39 for every person in the United States or $241 for each adult smoker and was a 17% increase over the previous year. Tobacco industry advertising and promotional expenditures nearly doubled since 1997.

Certain tobacco products are advertised and promoted disproportionately to members of racial/minority communities. For example, marketing toward Hispanics and American Indian/Alaska Natives has included advertising and promotion of cigarette brands with names such as “Rio, Dorado, and American Spirit” and the tobacco industry has sponsored festivals and activities related to Asian American Heritage Month.

So what can we do? Counter-Market!

Counter-Marketing: A strategy formed to adapt major corporate marketing strategies to promote tobacco prevention.

Intensive and sustained efforts to "counter-market" tobacco among teenagers are necessary to negate the "friendly familiarity" created by tobacco advertising and promotions and to communicate the true health and social costs of tobacco use.

Counter-marketing campaigns should highlight a tobacco-free lifestyle as the majority lifestyle of diverse and interesting individuals; explain the relevant dangers of tobacco in a personal, emotional way; offer youth empowerment and control; use multiple voices, strategies, and offer constructive alternatives to tobacco use; and portray smoking as unacceptable and undesirable for everyone, not just for youth. Counter-marketing activities should work together with other interventions in a comprehensive approach to alter social norms regarding tobacco.

The American Legacy Foundation, a national organization funded with $2.5 billion for use in youth counter-marketing, shows there is clear evidence that these campaigns work. Teen tobacco use dropped dramatically in California and Massachusetts after the implementation of their campaigns and Florida's youth directed counter-marketing effort has triggered reductions as high as 40%. Since American Legacy's "Truth" commercials have been appearing nationally, teen smoking has begun to decline throughout the US.

Information collected from the Centers for Disease Control Website, Accessed 8/2004 and the American Legacy Foundation.