Anti-Smoking Campaign Employs New Tool: Social Marketing
“Beautiful, like stylish beautiful clothes, you know, the jewelry, things that you want that, you want that dress, you want those clothes, you want that hair — why not want the cigarette too? You know, it just tops it off. It’s elegant now,” she says.
Like many businesses, tobacco companies create ad campaigns for a particular audience — too successfully, public health advocates say. With smoking rates nationally now stagnating, advocates are trying to beat tobacco companies at their own game.
“So what we’re trying to do here is using the same approach, social marketing, to try to tailor the message to quit smoking,” says Dr. Nananda Col, a researcher at Maine Medical Center. Col has developed a smoking cessation Web site specifically for young women.
Col says most anti-smoking campaigns target middle-aged smokers. But smoking poses special problems for young women. One in five smoke, and those who do have a higher chance of developing osteoporosis. Those who become pregnant face a higher risk of premature births.
At her office in downtown Portland, Col demonstrates how the Web site works. “There’s a questionnaire that you can fill out. And it will ask you quesitons: How old are you? Are you a college student? Are you married? How happy have you felt recently? How much do you smoke? And how do you feel when you run out of cigarettes? And you answer those questions and you will then see a video.”
There are three versions of the video, all featuring real-life, young female smokers. The particular video you see depends on how you answer the questions.
A young woman who, for example, has children and can’t seem to kick a serious addiction to cigarettes, will be shown this video: “The way I feel when I walk away from my kids to go have a cigarette — I feel like this big, I feel low, because I’m like, ok, I’m choosing to have a cigarette over playing and hanging out with my kids, that’s sad,” says a character in the video.
Young women working full-time — and who tend to smoke because they like it — get this video advice: “My approach would be to find other hobbies and other ways to distract yourself.”
College educated women — many of whom smoke socially and may not even consider themselves to be smokers — watch this version: “Sit down in the mirror and have a chat with yourself about why you should stop smoking and really, really make a good list, so you can’t justify having another cigarette later.”
Doctor Col says targeting anti-smoking messages based on a woman’s motivation for smoking and the barriers to her quitting is much more effective than using a one-size-fits-all approach.
“For instance, if some women are not smoking because of the social aspect, there’s no point in talking about that. For the women who are young mothers, they want to quit. So those kinds of women you don’t need to motivate them to quit, what you need to do is just help them, give them tools, give them resources, give them nicotine patches.”
About 100 women in Maine have used the Web site as part of a trial. Researchers will check back with the women after a few months to see if the videos have had any impact on their smoking habits.
Katherine Soverel tried the Web site a couple months ago. “I liked that the video had people my age that that I could really identify with,” says the 24-year-old college-educated Mainer now working as a research assistant in New York.
Like some of the women in the video she saw, she considers herself a very light smoker. But she still wants to stop smoking completely, and says it helps to see others talk about their motivations for quitting, such as the risk of cancer. “It’s also concerns about wrinkling and smelling bad, and those sorts of things that I think about, too.”
By: Josie Huang, Mpbn
