A Case Study of the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation’s Y Campaign to Reduce Youth
Smoking using Social Marketing
A Directed Research Project
Submitted to
The Faculty of the Public Communication Graduate Program
School of Communication
American University
Washington, D.C.
In Candidacy for the Degree of
Master of Arts
By
Kelly Hannon Morones
May 2009
A Case Study of the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation’s Y Campaign to Reduce Youth
Smoking using Social Marketing
ABSTRACT
The Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation launched the Y Campaign in 2002 to reduce
youth smoking among the state’s 10- to 17-year-olds. The state used funding from the Master
Settlement Agreement signed in 1998 with the four major U.S. tobacco companies. The
campaign used social marketing and health communication to change youth attitudes, awareness
and behavior related to smoking in Virginia. Specifically, the Y Campaign framed smoking and
using tobacco products as behavior that had social consequences for tweens and teens, such as
being found unattractive, undesirable, and gross. This made the Y Campaign a departure from
previous public health campaigns that framed tobacco use as behavior that would have negative
health consequences. Using substantial pre-campaign marketing research, VTSF developed a
series of television and radio commercials from 2002 to 2007 that depicted social images of
teens containing messages related to how smoking could make them physically or socially
unappealing to peers. The outcome and lessons of the Y Campaign may help other professional
communicators as they create and execute public health campaigns that target 10- to 17-yearolds and strive to reduce tobacco use.
Chapter I: Introduction
Smoking and tobacco-related illnesses kill more people in the United States every year
than alcohol use, car crashes, fires, homicides, suicides, and drug overdoses combined (VTSF,
2001). This statistic can be surprising, since the other causes of death tend to draw greater media
attention and public awareness. Yet medical workers who see patients struggling with
emphysema, high blood pressure, heart disease, and lung cancer know better. Tobacco use
remains the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. (VTSF, 2001). It kills more than
400,000 people each year. (VTSF, 2001).
Smoking is a behavior that starts young. Nearly 9 in 10 smokers started smoking before
they were even legally allowed to buy cigarettes at age 18 (VTSF, 2001). Experimentation may
be normal in adolescence, but even casual users of cigarettes have a hard time stopping because
of their addictive properties. It is estimated that a third of youth who try cigarettes before they
graduate from high school will become daily smokers (VTSF, 2001).
The costs of this behavior transcend the individual and their family and friends. In just
one state, Virginia, smoking is connected to $2 billion in additional health care costs. (VTSF,
2009). Preventing smoking-related illnesses could arguably redirect this money to researching
and treating diseases that are currently unpreventable, such as cancer.
When Virginia stumbled into an opportunity to create and fund a program that
discouraged youth smoking in the late 1990s, it decided to begin with a statewide advertising
campaign. This effort, which would come to be known as the Y Campaign, used unorthodox
strategies to educate teens on the risks of smoking. The purpose of this case study is to analyze
the Virginia Youth Tobacco Settlement Foundation’s Y Campaign using communication
concepts found in health communication and social marketing literature.
The case study will introduce and review scholarly articles on health communication and
social marketing concepts. It summarizes the strategies and tactics used in the Y Campaign,
which targeted 10- to 17-year-olds from 2001 to 2007 in Virginia. The case profile will discuss
message development and media channels selected for the messages. The analysis will document
the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign, and evaluate which strategies and tactics were
effective, and which were not.
The study is significant because the Y Campaign used social marketing and health
communication to change youth attitudes, awareness and behavior related to smoking in
Virginia. Specifically, the Y Campaign framed smoking and using tobacco products as behavior
that had social consequences for tweens and teens, such as being found unattractive, undesirable,
and gross. This made the Y Campaign a departure from previous public health campaigns that
framed tobacco use as behavior that would have negative health consequences. The outcome and
lessons of the Y Campaign may help other professional communicators as they create and
execute public health campaigns that target 10- to 17-year-olds and strive to reduce tobacco use
and prevent mouth and lung cancers.
Virginia had the opportunity to create a public information campaign because of the 1998
Master Settlement Agreement between the four largest tobacco companies in the U.S. and
attorney generals in 46 states. In the late 1990s, the tobacco industry was facing a wave of class
action lawsuits from U.S. residents and states seeking damages in connection with medical
problems caused by cigarettes and tobacco products. Specifically, states wanted to recover
Medicaid expenses connected to tobacco-related illnesses. In Virginia, the cost surpassed $400
million a year (VTSF, 2001). The lawsuits claimed the tobacco industry knew that cigarettes
were addictive and harmful, but hid the evidence from the government and consumers. Sensing
they would lose the lawsuits, the tobacco industry agreed to a settlement worth $246 billion. The
money would be distributed among the 46 states over 25 years. The industry had already settled
agreements with the remaining four states: Florida, Mississippi, Minnesota and Texas. The
Master Settlement Agreement instituted a ban on the advertisement of tobacco products to
anyone under age 18, and required each state to spend at least 10 percent of the settlement on
programs to curb tobacco use among children. Each state would develop its own youth program.
Previously, public information campaigns to discourage tobacco use centered on sharing
health information and promoting the benefits of non-smoking (National Library of Medicine
[NLM], 2003). Specifically, non-smokers were promoted as living a glamorous lifestyle to
contrast with the sophisticated image of smokers tobacco companies promoted in their
advertising (NLM, 2003).
A 1985 report on smoking by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was a catalyst for
anti-smoking campaigns across the United States. The report wrote not just about the health
consequences of smoking for individual smokers, but for workers who inhale secondhand smoke
from smokers at work. Suddenly, smoking became a decision that affected others, a public
matter for concern. After the study was published, it prompted the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services to establish a smoke-free facility (NLM, 2003). The American Lung
Association started a national campaign that encouraged businesses to become smoke-free
workplaces called TUFFS, Team Up for Freedom From Smoking. The TUFFS public
information campaign in the late 1980s featured a number of print advertisements. Using
animation and humor, TUFFS celebrated the kindness and thoughtfulness of smokers who
refrained from smoking at work, or gave up smoking altogether (NLM, 2003). One poster shows
a cartoon depiction of co-workers throwing a smoker up in the air for choosing not to smoke at
work, with the phrase “Everyone Loves a Quitter,” at the top (NLM, 2003). The campaign
tagline was “Let’s Work Together to Be Smoke-Free,” (NLM, 2003).
Youth were often part of early smoking prevention campaigns even though they were not
the target audience for the campaign. Youth were used as motivational device to inspire adult
smokers to quit. Another American Lung Association poster from 1986 had a picture of schoolage girl under the phrase, “We All Share the Same Air,” and “Thank You For Not Smoking,”
under the photo. (NLM, 2003). The World Health Organization created a World No Tobacco
Day on April 7, 1988, and launched a health-focused advertising campaign with the slogan
“Tobacco or Health: Choose Health,” (NLM, 2003). The non-smoker in the campaign poster was
smiling, while the smoker was frowning.
The American Lung Association did create a non-smoking campaign aimed at teens that
attempted to promote a positive, trendy image of non-smoking. The advertisements showed the
non-smoking teen on the “In” side of the picture with trendy clothes, sports equipment, and
favorite foods like a slice of pizza (NLM, 2003). An ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts is the
only item on the “Out” side (NLM, 2003).
One of the most groundbreaking youth anti-smoking campaigns in the U.S. occurred
shortly before the Y Campaign in Virginia. Florida reached a settlement with the four major
tobacco companies shortly before the Master Settlement Agreement was signed in 1998. This
gave Florida an early start at funding and creating a youth campaign called truth (Social
Marketing Institute [SMI], 2009). Instead of the previous anti-smoking campaigns, which tried to
enhance the image of non-smokers, truth portrayed the cigarette companies as manipulating
teens and the general public to smoke (SMI, 2009). Florida did extensive pre- and post-campaign
marketing research to determine which messages were most effective among the target
population of middle and high school students. It learned that messages relating to industry
manipulation made teens more likely to resist smoking during the course of the campaign (SMI,
2009). Also, during the first two years of the campaign, from 1998 to 2000, the percent of
Florida high school students who had smoked during the previous 30 days when asked fell from
27.4 percent to 20 percent (SMI, 2009). This success brought national recognition to truth, and
the American Legacy Foundation’s national anti-smoking campaign aimed at youth was modeled
after the Florida campaign (SMI, 2009).
This case study is limited to a review of the Y Campaign designed and implemented by
the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation from 2001 to 2007. VTSF did extensive pre- and
post-campaign research on 10- to 17-year old residents of Virginia, but without a test control
study, it may be difficult to conclusively show that the social marketing and health
communication concepts used in the Y Campaign are the sole cause for changes in youth
attitudes, awareness and behavior involving tobacco use during this time period. Also, this case
study will not explore the role of advertising by companies that produce tobacco products.
Although tobacco companies were not supposed to advertise to youth after 1998, a study by the
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has shown the ban to be ineffective (Campaign for TobaccoFree Kids, 2008). Tobacco companies have skirted the ban by advertising in national, adultthemed magazines that draw an aspirational teen audience, such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, or
Allure. These magazine advertisements contain messages about tobacco that may have countered
messages in the Y Campaign, and could have had an impact on youth smoking in Virginia during
the time frame of the campaign. However, given the breadth and scope of advertisements that
may have run during the time frame, such a study was not possible within the confines of this
paper. Finally, the case study will not explore Virginia’s history as a tobacco production state,
and how that may have affected legislation and cultural traditions related to youth smoking and
tobacco use prior to the campaign. While such a study would be informative, the Y Campaign’s
mission was changing youth smoking behavior, as it existed, regardless of how it developed.
Following this introduction, Chapter 2 details social marketing literature that is relevant
to analyzing the Y Campaign. Chapter 3 profiles the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation’s
strategies and tactics to reduce youth smoking in the Y Campaign. Chapter 4 will analyze how
social marketing research and concepts can be applied to the campaign. Chapter 4 will also
evaluate the campaign’s strengths and weaknesses, and its effectiveness. The conclusion,
Chapter 5, will review important findings and insights from the case study, as well as future
research that may be needed in the area of social marketing and youth tobacco use.
Chapter II: Literature Review
This chapter describes how scholars have developed and advanced the concept of social
marketing to achieve communication goals. The review progresses from the earlier broad studies
to more advanced studies focused on specific issues.
Wiebe (1951) first looked at how communicators began to use commercial marketing to
sell social ideas. Wiebe writes that individuals trying to sell social ideas and behavior change
through advertising in the mass media can be successful if conditions for effective marketing
exist. Wiebe aimed to explore the question: “Why can’t you sell brotherhood and rational
thinking like you sell soap?” (p. 679). Wiebe concludes that brotherhood can be sold like soap
under certain conditions, but warns that selling social ideas is more complex than selling a
commodity.
Wiebe writes that advertising alone does not move an individual to purchase a product or
adopt a social idea. Wiebe says advertising is one social mechanism that leads individuals to
purchase a product. The scholar defines five factors with regard to the audience’s motivation to
purchase a commodity: The force, the direction, the mechanism, the adequacy and compatibility,
and the distance.
Wiebe describes the force of the motivation as the combination of an individual’s
preconceived idea of the product before viewing an advertisement, mixed with the motivation
provided in the advertising. Wiebe defines the direction of motivation as the degree to which
audience members are told how to purchase a product, and the ease of purchasing that product.
Wiebe calls the mechanism of motivation as the implementation of a social mechanism, which
could be the structure or organization providing the motivation to buy the product. Wiebe calls
the adequacy and compatibility of motivation as whether the motivation is strong enough to
inspire an individual to buy a product, and whether that motivation is inclined to inspire that
purpose. Wiebe says the distance of motivation as the audience member’s perception of energy
needed to acquire the product.
Wiebe uses case studies to demonstrate the five factors at work in social campaigns. War
bonds were sold in large numbers by CBS Network in 1943, overcoming the challenge of linking
the purchase of war bonds with winning World War II. Wiebe writes that the force of motivation
in the campaign was strong, since the audience was inclined to assist soldiers. Wiebe writes the
direction of the campaign was clear, and the announcer gave the audience a phone number to call
in the pitch. Wiebe judged the mechanism to be strong, since CBS had trained and prepared staff
to answer calls and take orders in advance of the campaign. Wiebe writes the adequacy of the
motivation was sufficient, since CBS fielded a high number of calls. Wiebe writes the distance
was limited to a phone call, and the relationship between the caller and the clerk taking the order.
Wiebe says psychological distance was limited since callers made the order from home, with no
unfamiliar people or situations to confront.
Wiebe also profiles what he describes as an inadequate campaign, where a Civilian
Defense agency advertised weekly on WJZ-TV to persuade New York residents to participate in
their local Civilian Defense organizations. Wiebe writes that the campaign was discontinued.
The force of the motivation may have been strong, to assist their community during wartime, but
the campaign asked audience members to travel to an unfamiliar place to participate in unknown
activities. Also, the offices were unprepared for the audience response to the campaign, and
lacked supplies or staff to address volunteers. Wiebe concludes that although the campaign had
force of motivation, direction, adequacy of motivation, and the audience overcame physical and
psychological distance, the mechanism failed when staff were unprepared.
Wiebe also suggests that if the five factors are present in a campaign that attempts to sell
social ideas or behaviors, the creator has a reasonable expectation that the campaign can
experience the same level of success as a commercial product.
Kotler and Zaltman (1971) are frequently cited in social marketing research, and were the
first scholars to coin the term “social marketing,” (p. 5). Kotler and Zaltman build on the link
between marketing and social change to define social marketing as “the design, implementation,
and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving
considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution, and marketing
research,” (p. 5).
Kotler and Zaltman found social campaigns were more effective when marketing
professionals worked alongside social campaigners to develop, plan, implement and execute
information campaigns. Kotler and Zaltman say this collaboration is a bridging mechanism
between marketing professionals who understand the exchange process, and social campaigners
who understand human behavior and wish to change that behavior for the betterment of society.
Kotler and Zaltman define marketing as an exchange process that must involve two or
more parties, each with something to exchange, and that all parties must be able to carry out
communication and distribution. Kotler (1967) previously defined marketing management as the
analysis, planning, implementation and control of programs designed to bring about a desired
exchange with a target audience. Kotler and Zaltman (1971) simplify the definition of marketing
management as the realization that an opportunity exists to gain something by managing
exchange relations. The scholars specify that this management relies on altering product, price,
promotion and place to achieve the desired response from an audience. Marketing management
increasingly uses research to determine the target audience’s needs and wants to aid in campaign
design, and the creation of goods and services to satisfy audience needs and wants.
Kotler and Zaltman (1971) argue the marketing approach is easier than a sales approach,
where audience needs and wants must be changed to fit the existing good or service. The
scholars write that effective marketing management uses behavioral knowledge to solve
communication and persuasion problems as marketers try to influence an audience’s acceptance
of commercial goods and services.
Kotler and Zaltman find that social advertising has become an acceptable and widespread
practice in the United States. However, the authors say information-based advertising, not
marketing, had the primary role in most campaigns. Kotler and Zaltman write that social
marketing is different from social advertising because marketing adjusts the campaign planning,
pricing, communication, distribution channels and research in a way that strives to shape the
audience’s acceptance of social ideas. Social marketing is not just about sharing information, but
sharing information in a way that will make that information more acceptable to the audience.
Kotler and Zaltman explore how the four “Ps” of marketing, introduced by McCarthy
(YEAR) as product, promotion, place and price, are key variables in social marketing campaigns.
Social marketers must study the needs and wants of their audience to design a product, a good or
service that fulfills these needs and wants. Kotler and Zaltman say designing a product for social
campaigns can be challenging because achieving social change may require the creation of
numerous products. Kotler and Zaltman encourage communicators to identify a core product,
such as the desired social outcome, and work to create additional tangible products that move the
audience closer to the desired change.
Kotler and Zaltman discuss promotion as the communication and persuasion strategy and
tactics that makes a product acceptable to an audience. Promotion can include controlled media,
such as advertising, personal selling and sales promotion, and uncontrolled publicity. Designers
of a social marketing campaign must consider the tactics within each category.
Kotler and Zaltman discuss place as the selection of the appropriate distribution and
response channels. In a traditional marketing campaign, place is often where a customer can
purchase a product. Kotler and Zaltman write that in a social marketing campaign, place may be
the outlet where an audience member can translate motivations into action.
Kotler and Zaltman speak of price as the costs a buyer must accept to obtain a product.
Price is a monetary cost where an audience member surrenders money. An opportunity cost is
when an individual gives up an experience. An energy cost is when an individual exerts some
energy. A physic cost is where there is a psychological impact.
Kotler and Zaltman write that marketing professionals understand audience members
make a cost-benefit analysis before they decide to act. In a social marketing campaign,
communicators must consider how to increase the rewards of the product relative to the costs, or
reduce the costs in relation to the rewards.
Walsh, Rudd, Moeykens, and Moloney (1993) investigate how social marketing
campaigns apply to the field of public health. Walsh et al. write that marketing concepts have
been used for decades to successfully promote unhealthy behaviors, such as the consumption of
fast food, tobacco use and the sale of alcoholic beverages. The authors offer that social
marketing can apply marketing concepts and techniques to encourage healthy behavior changes.
Walsh et al. contend that improving public health is increasingly reliant upon individual
behavior changes and personal responsibility. Modern medicine has made treating acute
infections and viruses easier. Preventing chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, will
depend upon individuals choosing to exercise, eat a nutritious diet, and engage in other healthy
behaviors. Walsh et al. believe social marketing can help achieve this goal. The authors describe
how social marketing has already been successfully used in developing nations to encourage
residents to undergo immunization and use family planning services.
The authors stress that social marketing is not simply an information or communication
campaign. Walsh et al. view social advertising as a campaign that employs only advertising and
controlled channels of information to send a message to a target audience. Social communication
campaigns go beyond controlled sources to use personal selling, publicity and promotional
events. The authors write that social marketing may use these tactics to reach audiences, but that
social marketing campaigns are distinguished by involving market research, product
development and the use of incentives to reach audiences.
Walsh et al. detail three conceptual principles that must be present in a social marketing
campaign. First, the scholars contend the process must be disciplined. Walsh et al. write that this
means campaign objectives are clearly stated, research and management techniques are used to
achieve goals, and a tracking process monitors progress that can guide mid-campaign changes.
Second, the authors argue that social marketing campaigns listen to the consumer. Walsh et al.
say that audiences are targeted and segmented, and formative research defines these audiences
not only by demographics and by attitudes, beliefs, values, and motivations. Third, the authors
write that the product is responsive to the needs and wants of the audience, and audience
opinions are sought throughout the campaign so adjustments can be made.
Walsh et al. used these concepts to create a three-phase process for creating and
executing a social marketing campaign. The first process element is research and planning. In
this element, social marketers plan, conduct consumer analysis, conduct market analysis, and
conduct channel analysis. Walsh et al. write that identifying and segmenting audiences is
important to changing personal behavior. A social marketing campaign must identify an
audience’s barriers to improving public health, and the factors that will motivate that audience to
make changes. The authors identify strategy design as the second element. In this element, social
marketers develop a mix of marketing strategies for the campaign, including developing the
product. Ideas are identified and tested in the communication phase. The authors call
implementation and evaluation the third element. Social marketers implement the campaign,
assess the target groups and the product, and assess the campaign’s effectiveness.
Walsh et al. say social marketers must be persistent, and prepare to operate the campaign
over a long period of time before behavior changes occur. The authors acknowledge this may be
at odds with a short-term funding cycle for public health projects where results are expected
within three to five years. Walsh et al. say the short time span for most public health campaigns
may explain why positive results are rarely seen. Finally, the authors caution that social
marketing is not a panacea, and a social marketing campaign alone may not solve or improve
public health challenges.
MacStravic (2000) explores marketing concepts he believes are missing links in social
marketing campaigns. MacStravic writes that social marketing can inspire initial behavior
change among an audience, but the field needs to incorporate additional marketing concepts if it
wants to achieve permanent, lasting behavior change. MacStravic terms the new concepts “the
missing links,” (p. 255). MacStravic argues that social marketing has the potential to keep health
care costs low by preventing individuals from engaging in behavior that leads to chronic illness
or injury. The author writes that social marketing achieves this by promoting the benefits of
competing behaviors that will replace the existing behavior. MacStravic identifies the following
areas as potential targets for social marketing campaigns: smoking cessation, alcohol abuse, drug
abuse, and promoting exercise and healthier diets, safer driving, reducing violence, stress and
encouraging weight control.
MacStravic writes that successful social marketing campaigns currently involve three
primary functions, research, development and communications. MacStravic discusses the
research function as identifying how the audience behaves, the motivations behind the behavior,
and any barriers to changing behavior among segments of the audience. MacStravic suggests the
development function as determining the campaign’s product, price, placement and promotion,
which will be the method of influence for encouraging individuals to change their behavior.
MacStravic defines the communications function as the selection channels of communication for
the campaign’s message.
MacStravic identifies the three functions that would increase social marketing’s potential
as a method to inspire permanent, lasting behavior changes: monitoring, confirmation, and
solicitation. MacStravic believes monitoring as research that is not only formative, but
evaluative. The author argues that social marketing campaigns must research the audience’s
reaction as the campaign is ongoing, and after it has concluded, to test whether the audience
receives and understands the message. MacStravic contends additional research is necessary
because individuals interviewed during formative research may not reveal their true feelings
related to a behavior, which can lead to ineffective campaign messaging. MacStravic writes that
determining an individual’s true motivation for a behavior is paramount to crafting an effective
social marketing campaign, and choosing the proper campaign message to address that
motivation. MacStravic defines confirmation as reinforcement of the campaign’s goals and
messages after the individual has changed their behavior. The author writes that it is important to
remind individuals of the value of their decision to change behavior, since there will be a
temptation to relapse. MacStravic recommends social marketing campaigns use specific
examples of how an individual’s life has improved since the behavior change in reinforcement
messages. The author writes that this practice heightens awareness of the change, appreciation of
the change, and the likelihood that the individual will attribute their improved life to the behavior
change. MacStravic defines solicitation as encouraging individuals that have changed their
behavior successfully to encourage others to also change their behavior. MacStravic stresses that
this function should only come after a social marketing campaign has successfully engaged in the
previous five functions. The author writes that individuals who have changed behavior should
be recruited to provide testimony in future campaigns, provide casual word-of-mouth
recommendations to peers, travel door-to-door, or help shape future campaigns. MacStravic
argues that combining these additional three marketing functions with the functions currently in
use will expand the power of social marketing campaigns to improve public health.
Hastings (2003) discusses how social marketing campaigns are not a one-way affair.
Hastings writes that a paradigm change has occurred in commercial marketing since the early
1990s, shifting exchange from a process centered around transactions to a process centered on
relationships. Hastings says social marketing campaigns should undergo the same paradigm
change. Hastings writes that social marketers should attempt to change audience behavior by
developing two-way relationships with audience members.
Hastings acknowledges that shifting the focus of social marketing campaigns from
transactions to relationships can pose funding challenges, since many social marketing
campaigns are short-term projects underwritten by charitable contributions and grants. Social
marketing campaigns frequently try to achieve measure results quickly, ensuring additional
funding or a contract extension.
Hastings writes that relationship marketing provides a competitive advantage. Hastings
summarizes prior research that demonstrates relationship marketing allows organizations to
conduct stable, long-term planning as they form relationships with customers. Customers that
have a relationship with an organization will be less sensitive to price changes, and the
organization has additional time to sell customers new and additional products, called
“upselling” and “cross-selling.” (p. 8). Hastings writes that relationship marketing is a two-way
participatory process, where marketers are engaged in an activity with customers, rather than a
one-way process where marketers send information to customers.
Hastings identifies three core ideas from relationship marketing that can be transferred to
social marketing. First, Hastings advises social marketers to think in terms of relationships, not
transactions. Second, he says relationships can be developed with customers as well as with
suppliers, stakeholders, competitors, and employees. Third, the quality of the service should be
as important as the outcome. For social marketers, this means the quality of the marketing
campaign and the service it provides to the target audience must be high, regardless of the speed
and volume of behavior change.
Hastings writes that the nature of social marketing makes it an ideal match for
relationship marketing. Social marketing campaigns aim to change audience behavior. Behavior
changes do not occur overnight, and relationship marketing takes a similar long-term approach to
customer relations. Also, Hastings writes that social marketing is driven by intent to improve the
well-being of the target audience. To achieve this, individual appeals to audience members may
be required. A marketing campaign based around one-time transactions has limited ability to
reach individuals. Hastings describes how relationship marketing uses technology and data
mining to follow-up on earlier campaign appeals. This is a tactic that can be borrowed in social
marketing campaigns.
Further, Hastings writes that the behavior social marketing campaigns attempt to change,
such as tobacco use, are high-involvement decisions. A one-time transaction may not be enough
to convince an audience member to change their behavior. Also, Hastings points out social
marketing campaigns frequently target hard-to-reach groups. Building a relationship with
resistant groups will require more time than a one-time transaction would allow.
Hastings writes that a relationship approach to social marketing does not reject that
behavior change is not possible or sought. Rather, the relationship approach acknowledges that
behavior change is more likely if social marketers take a broader perspective on the types of
behaviors they seek to change, and how elements of a relationship, such as product purchase and
loyalty, can be used as benchmarks along the way.
McKinnon (2007) uses a case study to demonstrate how marketing concepts were
successfully applied to a public health goal. McKinnon attributes the success of a governmentfunded communication campaign to the campaign’s use of four strategies involving social
marketing and branding. McKinnon recommends future campaigns involving health
communication and social marketing adopt the similar strategies to be successful.
The Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention jointly sponsored the VERB campaign from 2002 to 2006. The VERB campaign was
designed to increase activity levels among children and preteens in segmented audiences in the
United States. The campaign’s tagline was “VERB: It’s What You Do.” (p. S53).
McKinnon writes that the campaign message empowered children and teens to become
active by highlighting a different benefit of exercise to each audience. VERB emphasized the fun
of physical activity to younger children, and the opportunity to make friends to young girls.
McKinnon writes that VERB emphasized how to exercise at home for children in lower
socioeconomic levels, where outdoor exercise may not be an option.
McKinnon writes that VERB was unique because it allowed Health and Human Services
and the CDC to circumvent the traditional government bidding process, and buy advertising
space directly from media outlets instead of using free public service announcements. McKinnon
writes that a significant number of children and teens were aware of the VERB campaign and
changed their physical activity level. During the first phase of the campaign, 70 percent of the
audience was aware of VERB in the first year. McKinnon writes that as the campaign continued,
the more children and preteens were exposed to VERB messages, the more exercise they
received. McKinnon argues this success should change the way public health communication
campaigns are conducted.
McKinnon identifies four key strategies. First, McKinnon argues VERB was successful
because it was treated as a brand. The author contends VERB was designed and sold as any other
brand forming a relationship with a consumer, such as Nike or Nickelodeon. Second, McKinnon
describes how VERB created an emotional affinity between the product and the audience, rather
than relying on standard health benefits to exercise. McKinnon writes that the campaign
communicated ways to love exercise, instead of telling the audience the health benefits of
exercise. Third, the author says research was done on audience motivation and opinions during
the development of the campaign, before and after message creation, and before and after the
selection of message channels. This research led to the fourth strategy. McKinnon writes that
research allowed the creators of VERB to position messages wherever kids were watching or
listening, especially during periods of the day they would be most inactive.
McKinnon recommends future public health campaigns strive to understand their
audience in the development phase. The author writes that this research allows the campaign to
target any barriers to behavior change in the campaign messaging. The author advises future
campaigns to use persuasion and emotional appeals to reach audiences, instead of health
statistics and information-based appeals. McKinnon recommends public agencies consult
marketing professionals who can marry commercial strength with the professional knowledge of
public health communicators. The author recommends partnering with unlikely allies, since the
allies can suggest strategies and tactics that may otherwise be overlooked. In the VERB
campaign, the unlikely ally was the media, which is often the cause for youth inaction. Finally,
McKinnon encourage organizations to pool financial resources to develop and implement
coordinated campaigns that have the opportunity to make a lasting impact, rather than a series of
smaller campaigns that will garner less attention.
Evans, Price, Blahut, Hersey, Niederdeppe, and Ray (2004) analyzed how a social
marketing campaign altered the perception of smoking among teenagers. Evans et al. studied
how truth campaign advertisements led youth ages 12 to 24 to change their smoking behavior,
and concluded that social imagery in campaign advertisements and personal beliefs and attitudes
about smoking were related to their smoking status. Evans et al. recommend that other social
marketing campaigns seeking to change risk behavior adopt the methods of the truth Campaign.
The American Legacy Foundation created an advertising campaign to combat the
glamorous image of smoking perpetuated by the tobacco industry. The campaign was named
truth. Evans writes that instead of focusing on the health risks of smoking, the truth campaign
targeted youth motivations of independence and rebellion, and the pull to be socially desirable.
The campaign created a brand where “truth” teens enjoy a socially desirable non-smoking
lifestyle, and framed the tobacco industry as manipulative, which casts non-smokers as
independent thinkers who resist corporate messaging.
The authors write that prior research into teen smoking behavior has shown teens
experiment with smoking in social groups. Evans et al. also discuss research that shows social
imagery in advertising campaigns portrays smoking as a glamorous activity that boosts
popularity and an individual’s number of friends. The authors write that adolescents value these
traits, and youth that agree with these images are more likely to try smoking.
Evans et al. tested the effectiveness of truth advertisements by surveying a statistically
representative sample of teens on campaign awareness, message receptivity, and persuasive
appeal. The study was conducted through three national telephone surveys of 12- to 24-yearolds. The first study was conducted before the campaign’s launch. The second study was
conducted once the campaign was underway. The third study was conducted later in the
campaign, once a new rotation of advertisements had begun airing. The authors write that survey
questions asked respondents about their exposure to the campaign advertisements, their
receptivity to the advertisements, their attitudes and beliefs about smoking and the tobacco
industry, and other questions about their lifestyle and smoking behavior. Evans et al. write that
respondents were specifically asked to compare smokers and normative behaviors, such as
popularity, attractiveness, appeal to the opposite sex, and coolness. Respondents were also asked
about their views on independence and rebelliousness related to tobacco use.
The authors hypothesized that to the extent “open-to-smoking” teens see the tobacco
industry as taking away their independence, the positive images of smokers will decrease, and
teens will transfer the positive associations to non-smokers. Evans et al. write that the enhanced
appeal of non-smoking in the advertisements should move teens to associate with the truth teens,
who are independent and socially desirable because they choose not to smoke.
Evans et al. concluded that exposure to the truth campaign had a statistically significant
impact on youth tobacco independence and social imagery. Being exposed to the campaign
heightened an individual’s sense of independence from tobacco use, and increased positive social
imagery of non-smokers. The authors found a strong relationship between peer influence to
avoid smoking and positive social imagery of non-smokers. The authors also found price had a
role in smoking behavior. The authors learned through the survey that as cigarettes became more
expensive, the less likely teens were to purchase them. The authors write that additional research
is needed into demographic differences and the influence of social imagery, and the influence of
personal peer persuasion not to smoke. Evans et al. encourage the promotion of positive social
imagery as a strategy for other social marketing campaigns seeking to change risk behavior.
Chapter III: Case Profile
This chapter profiles the development and execution of the Y Campaign, and details the
specific strategies and tactics used to change youth smoking behavior.
Virginia received approximately $4 billion from the 1999 settlement with the U.S.
tobacco industry. The money would be paid to Virginia in annual installments over 25 years. The
only requirement was the state had to spend 10 percent of the settlement$400 millionon
programs that would curb youth smoking.
This was an enormous sum of money to spend on youth anti-smoking. Nationwide,
approximately $200 million had been spent on youth anti-smoking programs in 1999. As a result
Virginia had twice that sum to spend, and it only had to reach preteens and teens living within its
borders. Although federal campaigns had aired in Virginia, this campaign would mark the first
time state money was spent to discourage tobacco use.
In 1999, the Virginia General Assembly created an umbrella organization, the Virginia
Tobacco Settlement Foundation (VTSF) to oversee all of the settlement-related programs for
youth. VTSF was created as a nonprofit overseen by a 23-member board of trustees. Clarence H.
Carter, former head of the Virginia Department of Social Services, was named executive
director. The General Assembly outlined the foundation’s mission as “financing efforts to restrict
the use of tobacco products by minors through such means as educational and awareness
programs on the health effects of tobacco use on minors and enforcement of laws restricting the
distribution of tobacco products to minors (Code of Virginia, 1999).
VTSF faced a sizeable task. To get a sense of its mission, the foundation conducted
several surveys. It spent $500,000 initially to assess the degree of youth smoking in Virginia. In
2001, they found that 28.6 percent of high school students in Virginia classified themselves as
smokers (2001). An even greater number of high school students had experimented with
smoking. Among female high school students, 59 percent admitted to trying cigarettes at least
once before graduation, and a slightly larger portion of male students, 64 percent, had given
smoking a try (VTSF, 2001). Perhaps most troubling of all, 10 percent of middle school students
in Virginia had already classified themselves as smokers. VTSF was concerned that four in five
teen smokers started before age 15, and one in five started before age 10 (Timberg, 2001).
Expectations for Virginia’s youth anti-smoking campaign were low, since it would be the
first one in state history. “You could really do some aggressive things, or they could do some
real milquetoast things,” said Donna Reynolds, a member of the American Lung Association
chapter in Virginia. “It depends on which direction they go,” (Timberg, 2000). VTSF decided to
budget $30 million for the first three years of the anti-smoking advertising and media campaign,
then untitled. With the initial study on youth tobacco use completed, VTSF began to shop for a
commercial advertising firm to design the campaign. After narrowing the field to seven finalists,
in June 2001 VTSF chose a firm based in Richmond, Work Inc.
From June to December of 2001, Work Inc. spent $750,000 conducting marketing
research among the campaign’s target age group, Virginia residents ages 10-17. Based on the age
most Virginia teens began smoking, VTSF knew it had to reach teens before they turned 15.
Designing the campaign to reach the “tween” market of 10- to 14-year-olds would be important
to curb tobacco use (Timberg, 2001). The formative research involved 2,500 Virginia youths,
and was conducted by RoperASW and Harris Interactive. The intent of the research was to learn
about the overall attitudes and beliefs of Virginians ages 10- to 17-year-olds, and to learn more
about their interests, activities, and tween and teen culture. The research also looked at attitudes
and beliefs about smoking and anti-smoking campaigns.
Roper ASW completed two statistically representative surveys of tweens and teens in
Virginia. The first study analyzed general attitudes and lifestyles, and explored smoking-specific
issues. The second study looked at media consumption and included questions intended to help
VTSF and Work develop campaign messages, and later, select channels to disseminate the
messages.
In terms of message development, Roper ASW found differences between Virginia youth
who smoke and those who do not smoke. Non-smokers were more likely to label themselves as
good students, at a difference of 77 percent to 57 percent (Roper, 2001). Smokers were more
likely to identify with attitudes that related to independence, social networks, and trendsetting
(Roper, 2001). Overall, 88 percent of Virginia youth said they express their independence by
making decisions for themselves (Roper, 2001). Also, 79 percent said they felt they were
perceived as “cool.” Another 82 percent agreed with the statement that it is cool to be smart
(Roper, 2001).
In terms of communication channels, Roper ASW found Internet use was high, with 77
percent of Virginia youth going online at home, and 72 percent going online at school (2001).
Nearly 40 percent of Virginia youth were online everyday, and another 19 percent were online
two to three times a week (Roper, 2001). Roper’s research found two-thirds of Virginia preteens
and teens watched television in the afternoon, for an average viewing length of 1.5 hours (2001).
On weekdays, Virginia preteens and teens watched an average of five hours of television.
Viewing rose on the weekend to an average of seven hours a day. The top ten channels watched
by tweens and teens were: MTV (66 percent watch), Fox (54 percent), BET (51 percent),
Cartoon Network (50 percent), Nickelodeon (49 percent), Disney Channel (48 percent), ABC (47
percent), HBO (46 percent), Comedy Central (43 percent), and USA (30 percent) (Roper, 2001).
Virginia teens also spent a significant amount of time listening to the radio. Roper found
tweens and teens in Virginia listen to an average of 3.5 hours of radio per weekday, and 4 hours
on a Saturday or Sunday (2001). The most popular station format was rap, with 72 percent of
Virginia tweens and teens listening to that format, followed by hip hop (54 percent), pop (42
percent), alternative rock (28 percent), and reggae (25 percent). (Roper, 2001). Movies were
another important form of media for preteens and teens. Roper found six in 10 Virginia teens and
tweens see a movie at least once a month, and 14 percent see a movie at least once a week
(2001).
Harris Interactive conducted a statistically representative survey of Virginia tweens and
teens ages 10-17 in Nov. 2001. The Harris study reached many of the same conclusions as the
Roper research. The Harris study found that tweens and teens use multiple forms of media, and
were increasingly using the Internet, e-mail and instant messaging to communicate (2001). In
2001, cell phones had not yet become a major form of communication in this age group,
although this would change during the lifespan of the campaign.
Harris provided additional information about media use. It found Virginia tweens and
teens were multi-tasking while they watched television or listen to the radio (2001). Teens work
on homework, read, or use the Internet at the same time. This means campaign advertisements
would have to compete for the audience’s attention. Also, when Virginia teens use the Internet,
they are most likely to visit search engines, game and music websites. Harris found few teens
visited health websites, or visited online chat rooms. (2001).
The Harris survey tested the credibility and believability of two possible messages.
Tweens and teens were three times more likely to find anti-smoking commercials believable if
they contained messages that encouraged “getting serious about the future” instead of messages
that promote non-smokers as “not weird,” (Harris, 2001).
Both the Harris and Roper studies revealed that Virginia youth did not pay much
attention to health messages about smoking, such as the danger of developing mouth or lung
cancer (2001). Rather, youth reacted best to messages that indicated how smoking might make
them less appealing, and messages that empower them to make decisions (Timberg, 2001). “All
the things that make you unattractive at the prom are things kids think about,” said Donald Just,
chairman of Work Inc. (Timberg, 2001). Virginia youth perceived non-smokers as “good at
sports,” trustworthy,” “fun,” and “leaders,” (Harris, 2001). Smokers were described as “not
caring what others think,” and “thin” (Harris, 2001).
The VTSF Board of Trustees voted to adopt the slogan, “Can anybody tell us why
smoking isn’t stupid?” as the campaign’s tagline and core message (Timberg, 2001). The line
involved the target audience asking them to contemplate any reason why smoking wasn’t a bad
idea, thinking for themselves. It empowered preteens and teens to make up their mind about
smoking on their own terms. The tagline also implies it will be difficult to find a reason smoking
isn’t “stupid.” The other core message for the campaign would be that smoking comes with side
effects that can make a tween physically unappealing.
Given tween and teen use of the Internet, the campaign website would become a key
component of the outreach and advertising effort. VTSF wanted youth to have a chance to
participate in the campaign by uploading their own notes, essays, videos and music about antismoking. It chose an address, ydoyouthink.com, that encouraged youth to express why they
thought smoking was stupid, or harmful, or uncool. The “Y” at the beginning of the website
address stuck at VTSF. The campaign was never formally named, but the collection of campaign
media and advertising efforts quickly was nicknamed the “Y” campaign by VTSF, the media,
and youth throughout Virginia. VTSF further branded the Y Campaign by choosing a logo of a
black “Y” against a yellow circle, next to a question mark. This referred back to the question
tagline of the campaign, “Can Anybody Tell Us Why Smoking Isn’t Stupid?” The “Y” logo
appeared on all campaign materials.
The campaign was launched in April 2002. Initially, the campaign included advertising
on television, radio, at movie theaters, and outdoor venues, such as billboards. Campaign
advertisements prominently displayed the website address for ydoyouthink.com, and encouraged
tweens and teens to visit. VTSF chose multiple media channels because it wanted tweens and
teens exposed to Y Campaign advertisements multiple times each month. On television, VTSF
ran commercials on the channels most popular with tweens and teens in the survey. Radio
commercials aired on stations with the formats that were most popular in survey research.
VTSF and Work Inc. decided to take an aggressive tone in the campaign’s
advertisements, following the lead of Florida’s truth campaign, which characterized tobacco
companies are misleading. VTSF’s edginess came not in attacking tobacco companies, but in its
approach to non-smoking ads. The public was accustomed to anti-smoking advertisements that
talk about health consequences. The Y Campaign discussed the social consequences of smoking,
and purposely used tweens and teens to deliver the message (VTSF, 2002).
One of the first 30-second campaign advertisements to air, “Phlegm,” shows a teenage
girl and boy sitting in a darkened movie theater. Horror music plays in the background. The girl
begins to cough. Time passes. Then she continues to cough, hacking up phlegm, and disturbing
other moviegoers. She looks uncomfortable. The boy, who had his arm around her, flinches and
starts to move away. A placard near the end of the commercial says “Teens who smoke produce
twice as much phlegm as teens who don’t smoke” (VTSF, 2002). A bright yellow screen with the
“Y” logo follows this, as a voice says, “Can Anybody Tell Us Why Smoking Isn’t Stupid?”
Another 30-second television commercial, “Hairy Lip,” shows a teenage girl in her
bathroom. She puts wax on her lip and applies a paper strip. She winces, rips it off quickly, and
the audience hears her yell “Ouch!” as a placard appears: “Girls who smoke are seven times
more likely to get excess facial hair” (VTSF, 2002). The commercial ends with the “Y” logo and
campaign tagline.
During 2002, eight 60-second radio commercials aired in Virginia. The commercials
were written as songs in the station format where they aired: rap/hip hop, rock, or slow pop song.
(VTSF, 2002). All of the advertisements encouraged Virginia tweens and teens to write their
own song about smoking. “Do you have a song about how stupid smoking is? Go to
ydoyouthink.com to find out how to get it on the air” (VTSF, 2002). These commercials
contained the same message as the television commercials. Each one focused on the negative
social repercussions of smoking, and featured tween and teen voices, so youth were speaking to
their peers about smoking. The radio commercials also promoted the campaign website and
engaged tweens and teens to create their own anti-smoking message. A sample line from one of
the hip-hop radio commercials that year, which was titled “My Body is a Temple,” features a
male teen singing “Nobody will ever be my date if she smokes/cause I hate it.” (VTSF, 2002). In
a folk/pop version, two girls sing “This song goes out to a certain guy in our class who smokes,
and you know who you are … he needs to get a life, it’s gross, disgusting, makes me totally
unattracted to him, (VTSF, 2002).
Ydoyouthink.com was designed to discuss tobacco use in a low-key way. The site
featured the “rant” section, where tweens and teens could post messages about smoking, ask
questions, or participate in the song contest advertised in the radio commercials. It had a DJ
mixing board game where tweens and teens could create their own music video from a database
of songs and characters. It had a skate park game that let participants perform skateboarding
tricks while answering questions to keep the audience from using tobacco products. Information
about smoking was mostly related to social interactions and physical appearance, just as in the
commercials. Since VTSF understood tweens and tweens would not actively seek out health and
wellness information, it had “factoids” appear periodically on the computer screen. Sample
factoids included: “Smokers earn 10 percent less than non-smokers and “Spit tobacco diminishes
your sense of taste, so food doesn’t taste as good (VTSF, 2002). Ydoyouthink.com won the
Bronze Lion award in the 49th International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France in 2002.
Ydoyouthink.com won this top award in the nonprofit category, and it was recognized for
excellence in online marketing communications. Yahoo also selected ydoyouthink.com as a
“Cool Site of the Day” in 2002 (VTSF, 2002).
Starting in 2002, the Y Rantmobile was the traveling arm of the Y campaign. A BMW
Mini Cooper, the vehicle was painted an eye-catching black and white and emblazoned with the
distinctive “Y” logo in a yellow circle. The Y Rantmobile was an extension of the online “rant”
section of ydoyouthink.com. By the end of 2004, the Y Rantmobile had traveled to 440 middle
school and high schools in Virginia and hosted more than 50,000 students (VTSF, 2004). The
BMW Mini Cooper was a relatively new vehicle in the United States, and its diminutive size was
a novelty to students. The Y Rantmobile was equipped with a video recording booth where
tweens and teens could record a message about not smoking. With parental permission, the
videos could be posted online at ydothouthink.com.
The Y Rantmobile was part of the Y Campaign’s street marketing effort. The goal of the
campaign’s street marketing was to let tween and teens to speak directly to friends, classmates
and anyone in their age group about smoking, and personalize their message (VTSF, 2002).
Street marketing was another way to spread the campaign’s message beyond commercials and
advertising. Starting in 2004, a program called “Y Street” recruited teen volunteers at Virginia
high schools to train youth on how to conduct peer-to-peer interactions about smoking. During
the first 18 months, Y Street recruited 1,667 teens, which resulted in more than 25,000 peer
interactions in Virginia (VTSF, 2002).
Freshness was important to VTSF and the Y Campaign. In 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006
VTSF worked to develop a new batch of 60-second radio and 30-second television commercials
every year. The campaign messages and the target audience for the campaign did not change.
The commercials continued to communicate how smoking could affect a tween or teen’s social
life and physical appearance, or their “cool” factor. VTSF used the new commercials to get
attention, and to speak to a new group of tweens or tweens who had aged into the target audience
or moved into Virginia from another state. VTSF kept all the commercials archived on
ydoyouthink.com so they could be watched at any time online.
The nonprofit organization maintained its brand of edgy, occasionally shocking, and
funny commercials. Increasingly, VTSF used commercials to draw parallels between smoking
and other unappealing behaviors. Among the most notable commercials was “Frog,” a 30-second
television commercial that shows a teenage girl in biology class preparing to dissect a frog. The
girl picks up a lab beaker containing a frog, which is suspended in formaldehyde, and drinks the
liquid. Her classmates watch her in horror. At the end of the commercial, a teen voice informs
viewers that cigarettes also contain formaldehyde. Another 30-second television commercial,
“Lick,” shows a teen girl walking through her backyard, licking her cat, a garbage can lid, a
flyswatter, and an old tire with delight. “Isn’t smoking just as disgusting?” a teen voice asks at
the end (VTSF, 2004). The gross-out theme continued with the 30-second television commercial
“Pick,” which showed a group of teens gathered in what would typically be an afterschool
smoking hangout near the school. Instead, the teens are picking their noses. The commercial
ended with the same “Isn’t smoking just as disgusting?” tagline (VTSF, 2004).
Other VTSF commercials continued to link smoking and a compromised physical
appearance. The 30-second television commercial, “Belly Dance,” won an Advertising Age
award. It shows overweight young adults dancing in a music video without shirts, as their
stomachs wiggle to the music. The final panel in the commercial says, “Teen smokers are more
likely to gain belly fat,” (VTSF, 2005). In another 30-second television commercial,
“Makeover,” a teen girl is in a salon called “Smoke & Mirrors,” (VTSF, 2002). A gaunt stylist
with yellow skin approaches her. Instead of making the girl more beautiful, the makeover
simulates the effects of cigarette smoking. The girl receives “puffing treatments,” where cigarette
smoke is blown in her face (VTSF, 2002). The girl’s teeth are yellowed, and her fingernails
stained with nicotine. The stylist gives the girl “beauty marks” by burning holes in her jacket
with a cigarette (VTSF, 2002). The “Y” campaign logo flashes prominently at the end.
VTSF also tried to use humor. It featured a smoking superhero, Buttman, in a 30-second
television commercial that aired in 2003. Wearing a yellow cape, Buttman is not the typical
superhero. He has no superpowers and cannot fly. “Cigarettes are expensive, so even a superhero
has to work,” Buttman says, riding his bike to a job cleaning dishes at a diner (VTSF, 2004).
He’s also not too smart, since he lights up a cigarette at a gas station. Buttman is constantly
hacking and wheezing as he tries, unsuccessfully, to help others. The commercial jingle called
Buttman “the most pathetic superhero” (VTSF, 2004).
The television and radio commercials, Y Rantmobile and Y Street combined for
substantial awareness of the Y Campaign. After the first six months of the campaign, 59 percent
of 10- to 17-year-olds in Virginia were aware of the Y Campaign (VTSF, 2002). At the end of
2004, 76 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds recognized the Y Campaign. Awareness remained above
70 percent in each quarter through 2007 (VTSF, 2009). “You should almost be able to stop any
kid on the street, and only one in four couldn’t tell you about the campaign,” said Danny
Saggese, VTSF marketing director (Richmond Times Dispatch, 2004).
A marketing study commissioned by VTSF in October 2006 found 87 percent of 10- to
17-year-olds in Virginia who were aware of the campaign could recall something specific about
it. (2006). Also, 90 percent of those who were aware of the Y Campaign said it was
“meaningful,” easy to understand, and had “believability” (VTSF, 2006). Sixty-eight percent of
Virginia tweens and teens associated nonsmokers with the word “cool,” while 65 percent
associated it with “popular,” and 87 percent with “trustworthy” (VTSF, 2006).
The 2005 Virginia Youth Tobacco Survey found smoking had fallen among the state’s
middle and high school students. Prior to the Y Campaign, 28.5 percent of Virginia high school
students were smokers, and 10.6 percent of middle school students were smokers (VTSF, 2001).
By 2005, the percentage of high school smokers was down to 23 percent of students, and 7.6
percent of students in middle school (VTSF, 2005). Rates of students who had tried cigarettes,
but did not classify themselves as smokers, were also lower. In 2001, 59.7 percent of female high
school students said they had tried cigarettes (VTSF, 2001). By 2005, the percentage was 46.5
percent of female high school students (VTSF, 2005). For males, 64.7 percent of high school
students had tried cigarettes in 2001 (VTSF, 2001). The percentage had fallen to 50.7 percent by
2005 (VTSF, 2005). Out of the total audience for the Y Campaign, 10- to-17 year-olds in
Virginia, only 15.5 percent classified themselves as smokers in 2005 (VTSF, 2005). In 2001, the
percentage had been 20.5 percent of the audience (VTSF, 2001).
In 2007, after the Y Campaign had been in place for five years, Virginia announced the
results of another statewide Youth Tobacco Survey. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine announced the
findings on Sept. 9, 2008 at Manchester Middle School in Chesterfield, Va. “The survey shows
that youth tobacco use in Virginia has fallen to its lowest point in this decade, and in fact now
compares very favorably against national averages,” Kaine said (VTSF, 2008).
According to survey results, only 15.5 percent of high school students in Virginia
classified themselves as smokers in 2007 (VTSF, 2008). This was down from 28.5 percent of
high-schoolers before the Y Campaign in 2001 (VTSF, 2001). Also, the survey found 4.6 percent
of middle school students were smokers in 2007, a drop from 10.6 percent of students in 2001.
(VTSF, 2008).
“Smoking among high schoolers and smoking among middle schoolers has been cut in
half. That is a tremendous achievement,” Kaine said.
Experimenting with cigarettes also declined. The percentage of female high school
students who had tried cigarettes had fallen to 40.2 percent in 2007 from 59.7 percent in 2001
(VTSF, 2008). Experimentation among male high school students was down, too, to a nearly
even level with females. By 2007 41.6 percent of male high school students had tried smoking, a
significantly lower rate than in 2001, when 64.7 percent of males had experimented with them
(VTSF, 2008).
Finally, looking at the entire audience of 10- to 17-year olds, the 2007 survey found that
11 percent of these middle and school students classified themselves as smokers (VTSF, 2008).
When the Y Campaign was being developed in 2001, it confronted a smoking rate of 20.5
percent among the same age group. The number had fallen nearly by half in 2007.
Chapter IV: Case Analysis
This chapter addresses how the success of the Y Campaign by the Virginia Tobacco
Settlement Foundation (VTSF) can be explained using social marketing theory and concepts.
Virginia’s acceptance of tobacco settlement funds required it to apply 10 percent of the
money to reducing youth tobacco. Yet there was no stipulation on how this money should be
spent. Virginia could have produced a handful of posters and brochures with straightforward
health information about the risks of smoking. Instead, VTSF used marketing research to
understand the needs and wants of the audience, 10- to 17-year-olds in Virginia. VTSF used that
research to develop campaign messages that would be effective, even though the messages had
seemingly little to do with health at a surface glance. After five years of marketing non-smoking
through television and radio commercials, peer communication, and a youth-focused Web site,
the Y Campaign had a consistent awareness rate above 70 percent, and youth smoking in
Virginia had fallen from 20 percent of middle and high school students to 11 percent of these
students (VTSF, 2008). In essence, the Y campaign managed to sell nonsmoking, as Gerard
Wiebe (1951) might say, like soap.
Wiebe initiated research in the field of social marketing by exploring how individuals
trying to sell social ideas and behavior change through advertising in the mass media could be
successful. Wiebe identified five factors that, when present, increase expectations that a social
campaign can experience the same level of success as a commercial product. Wiebe identified
the factors as the force, the direction, the mechanism, the adequacy and compatibility, and the
distance of an audience’s motivation to purchase a commodity.
The five factors identified by Wiebe are present in VTSF’s Y Campaign. First is the force
of motivation. Wiebe defined the force of motivation as the combination of an individual’s
preconceived idea of the product before viewing an advertisement, mixed with the motivation
provided in the advertisement. VTSF conducted initial research into how 10- to 17-year-olds in
Virginia perceived the product, smoking, before it developed the Y Campaign. This research
gave campaign organizers insight into the audience’s force of motivation. The research found
smokers were perceived as “thin” and as “not caring what others think,” or rebellious (Roper,
2001). Research also found teens reacted best to trial messages that smoking would make them
less appealing to friends and potential romantic partners (Roper, 2001). The Y Campaign used
that finding to craft commercials that highlighted the ways smoking makes teenagers less
physically or socially appealing, such as the commercial that indicated female smokers are seven
times more likely to have excess facial hair than female nonsmokers (VTSF, 2002). The Y
Campaign commercials also encouraged the audience to be rebellious and independent by
questioning if there was a reason why “smoking isn’t stupid?” (VTSF, 2002). The questioning of
the act of smoking and the desire to remain attractive provided the force of motivation for the 10to 17-year-old audience.
Second, direction of motivation is also present in the Y Campaign. Wiebe defines the
direction of motivation as the degree to which audience members are told how to purchase the
product, or in this case, take action (1951). The Y Campaign provided direction in every
commercial, prominently displaying the Y Campaign website address, ydoyouthink.com, while
an announcer directed youth to go to the site and share their ideas and thoughts about smoking.
Each commercial encouraged viewers to engage in critical thought by asking viewers to ponder,
“Can anybody tell us why smoking isn’t stupid?” (VTSF, 2002).
Third is the mechanism of the audience’s motivation, which Wiebe explained as the
structure or organization providing the motivation to buy the product (1951). The Y Campaign
was developed and championed by VTSF, which had the support of the Virginia General
Assembly and Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, and later Gov. Tim Kaine. All actions by VTSF were
intended to inspire youth to adopt a nonsmoking lifestyle.
Fourth, the Y Campaign as a social campaign has adequacy and compatibility in the
audience’s motivation. Wiebe defined adequacy as a motivation strong enough to inspire an
audience member to buy a product, and compatibility as whether that motivation inspires a
purchase or acceptance of the social idea. The Y Campaign’s adequacy and compatibility was
sufficient, since it ultimately halved the number of youth smokers in Virginia over a five-year
period. The twin messages of questioning the act of smoking and demonstrating the ways
smoking would change the appearance of their teeth, skin and face motivated fewer youth to
smoke.
Wiebe defined the final crucial factor, distance, as an audience member’s perception of
the energy required to purchase the product (1951). The product in the Y Campaign was
nonsmoking. The Y Campaign did not directly discuss how to quit smoking or avoid smoking in
its radio or television commercials, in the Y Rantmobile, at Y Street sessions, on billboard ads,
or on ydoyouthink.com. Prior research before the campaign was developed showed youth spent
little time researching health information or news, and were not responsive to messages about
smoking that included health information (Roper, 2001). Instead, the Y Campaign positioned
smoking as a choice that had social consequences. Non-smoking was marketed as a decision that
would be made in the same way a tween or teen would decide to wear a certain brand deodorant
to smell clean, select a jacket to appear fashionable, or chew gum to keep their breath pleasing.
Tweens and teens concluded the energy required was low, as smoking rates steadily went down
in their age group as the Y Campaign rolled out its efforts from 2002 to 2007.
The Y Campaign also contains important elements identified by Kotler and Zaltman
(1971). The authors first coined the term social marketing, defining it as “the design,
implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas
and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution, and
marketing research” (p. 5). The Y Campaign was developed through the collaboration of
marketing professionals at Work Inc. and the social campaigners at VTSF. Work understood that
marketing is an exchange process between two or more parties. In this case, the exchange was
between VTSF and Virginia youth ages 10 to 17. Kotler and Zaltman explored how managing
the marketing exchange process by altering the product, price, promotion or placement could
apply to social campaigns. In order to convince tweens and teens not to smoke, Work knew the Y
Campaign must give the audience something in exchange by altering the product, price,
promotion or placement of nonsmoking. By studying the needs and wants of the tween and teen
audience, Work learned that youth desired to be liked by friends, peers, and potential romantic
partners, and aspired to a physically attractive appearance. Work and VTSF then marketed the
product, nonsmoking, as an item that would help the audience achieve this desire.
With nonsmoking as a product, VTSF turned to price. Kotler and Zaltman define price as
the cost a buyer must accept to obtain a product. The Y Campaign did not address the cost of
nonsmoking, or what an audience member would give up by choosing not to smoke. In fact, the
campaign tagline implied there was no price to forgoing smoking: “Can anybody tell us why
smoking isn’t stupid?” (VTSF, 2002). The campaign logo applied to every commercial, a “Y”
against a yellow circle, echoed this theme.
Promotion was an important part of the Y Campaign. Kotler and Zaltman wrote that
promotion is the communication and persuasion strategy employed to make a product acceptable
to an audience, and placement as choosing the proper distribution channels. VTSF used precampaign marketing research from Roper ASW, Harris Interactive and Work to determine the
most popular radio and television stations with Virginia tweens and teens, and how much time
this audience spent watching TV, radio, and using the Internet on different days of the week.
This research allowed VTSF to choose distribution channels for radio and television
commercials that ensured teens would hear and see Y Campaign commercials several times each
month. For the promotion of nonsmoking, the Y Campaign persuaded the audience that smoking
would make them repellant to potential dates and friends who would recoil at stained teeth and
fingernails, burn marks in their clothing, excessive phlegm, belly fat, or facial hair.
Walsh, Eudd, Moeykens and Moloney (1993) explored the relationship between social
marketing campaigns and public health goals, and argued that the same marketing techniques
that are used to sell fast food and cigarettes could be used to sell healthy behaviors. Walsh et al.
wrote that social marketing campaigns must go beyond advertising social ideas through
information. The authors wrote that successful social marketing employ personal selling,
publicity and promotional events.
Advertising was an important component of the Y Campaign, but the campaign included
personal selling through the Y Rantmobile, the Y Web site, ydoyouthink.com, and the peer-topeer conversation group, Y Street. In the Rantmobile, a trendy BMW Mini Cooper that traveled
to more than 400 Virginia middle and high schools, students were invited to sit in the car and
record a message about smoking. More than 50,000 youth participated. The Rantmobile was a
tangible, participatory activity that drove additional traffic to the campaign website,
ydoyouthink.com, where a select number of videos were posted with parental permission. This
empowered tweens and teens to create their own message about smoking. Pre-Y Campaign
researched also demonstrated peer opinions were important to tweens and teens, so the Y
Campaign trained 1,667 Virginia teens to engage their classmates in conversations about
smoking and nonsmoking. Even if teens did not hear the Y Campaign messages through the
commercials, or chose not to receive the message, it would be hard to ignore a message coming
directly from a friend. The Y Street training resulted in more than 25,000 peer interactions in
Virginia related to the Y Campaign.
MacStravic (2000) argued that social marketing campaigns can inspire initial behavior
change among an audience, but to create last change campaigns must adopt additional marketing
techniques, which he referred to as the “missing links.” MacStravic identified three missing
links: monitoring, confirmation, and solicitation. MacStravic wrote that successful social
marketing campaigns already use the primary functions of research, development and
communications to influence behavior.
One can see the pivotal role of monitoring in the Y Campaign. MacStravic defined
monitoring as research that is formative and evaluative. As previously discussed, VTSF
employed Work, Roper ASW and Harris Interactive to conduct extensive formative research on
the tween and teen audience. The Y Campaign also used evaluative research to monitor
awareness of the television and radio commercials, awareness of the website and website traffic,
the number of participants in Y Street, and the number of visitors to the Y Rantmobile. VTSF
also conducted evaluative research tracking any change in youth smoking behavior, which was
the goal of the Y Campaign. The Youth Tobacco Survey, conducted every two years in 2001,
2003, 2005 and 2007, showed the level of smoking among Virginia middle and high school
students and experimentation with smoking.
Confirmation is also evident in the Y Campaign. MacStravic defined confirmation as
reinforcement of the campaign’s goals and messages after the individual has changed their
behavior. The author suggests campaigns remind the audience of the ways their life has
improved since they changed their behavior. It may be too soon to say whether VTSF and the Y
Campaign has provided enough confirmation to prevent tweens and teens from deciding to
smoke as they age. The Y Campaign did develop a new series of radio and television
commercials each year from 2002 to 2007, which should have reinforced messages from the
prior year’s commercials. Watching a new batch of commercials should remind Virginia youth
that their decision to not smoke spared them from unsightly side effects of smoking, and from
falling prey to a “disgusting” habit, as suggested in the nose-picking commercial, “Pick.”
Finally, solicitation is also prominent in the Y Campaign. MacStravic defined solicitation
as encouraging individuals who have changed their behavior to convince others to do the same,
essentially personal selling (2000). The Y Street peer-to-peer conversation initiative attempted to
provide a solicitation element to the Y Campaign. However, VTSF did not require Y Street
participants to be former smokers. This difference may have made it more difficult for a Y Street
member who had never smoked to convince a current tween or teen smoker to quit. On the other
hand, one of the goals of the Y Campaign was to prevent tweens and teens from ever smoking,
not only to quit. In this case, Y Street may have been an effective way of personal selling to this
population. The Y Campaign also smartly realized that using tween and teen voices and actors in
radio and television commercials was another form of solicitation. These teens were selling
nonsmoking to the peers in the commercials, instead of adults.
Hastings (2003) described how social marketing campaigns could benefit from a new
trend in commercial marketing, relationship building. Hastings wrote that marketing had
undergone a paradigm change in the 1990s, and that the marketing exchange process has shifted
from transactions to relationships. Hastings wrote that social marketers should attempt to change
audience behavior by developing relationships with their audience members.
Although Hastings emphasized relationships, he acknowledged this could be difficult for
government-funded campaigns that need to demonstrate results rapidly, or risk losing funding.
VTSF did not strive to develop a lasting relationship with 10- to 17-year-olds in Virginia in the Y
Campaign. Instead, the campaign was designed to change audience behavior almost immediately
through the messages in the television and radio commercials, on ydoyouthink.com, and by
giving the audience the opportunity to speak directly about smoking with peers in Y Street and
the Rantmobile. This approach may have been enough to develop a relationship with tweens and
teens that had never smoked. However, Hastings writes that relationship marketing is especially
important when social campaigns attempt high-involvement social change, and specifically
mentions convincing individuals to quit smoking. The Y Campaign did not offer any smoking
cessation assistance. Post-campaign researched showed the number of middle and high school
students that classified themselves as smokers had fallen by half from 2001 to 2007 (VTSF,
2008). But it is impossible to know how far the rates could have fallen if the Y Campaign had
made an effort to direct youth smokers to cessation programs in their communities.
McKinnon (2007) summarizes the social marketing strategies that made a Department of
Health and Human Services youth campaign, VERB, successful. The goal of VERB was
increasing physical activity among children and preteens in segmented audiences in the United
States. The campaign ran from 2002 to 2006. McKinnon attributes VERB’s ability to change
behavior to four social marketing strategies, and advises future campaigns involving health
communication and social marketing to apply the same steps.
First, McKinnon writes that VERB treated the campaign as a brand, and marketed itself
to consumers just as Coke or Pepsi would sell drinks. The Y Campaign branded itself
consistently throughout the campaign. The black “Y” logo in a yellow circle, with a question
mark, appeared at the beginning and end of every television commercial and was prominently
displayed on ydoyouthink.com. Radio commercials could not visually display the “Y” brand, but
instead directed listeners to ydoyouthink.com, and consistently used the Y Campaign’s signature
signoff line, “Can anybody tell us why smoking isn’t stupid?” Linking Y Campaign materials in
this way ensured listeners and viewers would associate the offbeat, humorous and edgy
advertisements about nonsmoking with the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation and the Y
Campaign, making it a known source of information about tobacco use. After the first six
months of the campaign, awareness of the “brand” was high, at 59 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds
in Virginia. By the end of 2004, 76 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds were aware of the campaign,
and the awareness level never again dipped below 70 percent.
McKinnon writes that VERB was successful because it created an emotional affinity
between the product and the audience, instead of relying on cold, unemotional scientific facts to
persuade an audience to change behavior by logic (2007). The Y Campaign did not completely
abandon scientific and health information in its attempt to persuade Virginia tweens and teens
not to smoke. Instead, VTSF smartly highlighted health information in radio and television
commercials that it knew would have emotional resonance for teens. For instance, in “Phlegm,”
the Y Campaign flashes a factoid on the screen that reveals smokers produce more phlegm that
non-smokers (VTSF, 2002). This medical information seems dry and unconvincing on its own.
Yet the Y Campaign embedded this fact in a commercial that shows a teenage boy sliding away
from his date, a teenage girl, who is interrupting a movie by constantly hacking up phlegm. The
commercial makes an emotional argument that additional phlegm will make you unattractive to
romantic partners. This juxtaposition of medical information and social scenes became the
hallmark of the Y Campaign. The social situations portrayed in the Y Campaign radio and
television commercials had a powerful emotional impact, making the medical information more
memorable than it would have been on its own.
McKinnon says research done before the VERB campaign on audience motivation and
opinions, research during message development, and research performed after the campaign
launch helped it successfully change audience behavior (2007). The Y Campaign invested
significantly in pre-campaign research, spending $500,000 and six months studying tween and
teen tobacco use in Virginia before it even hired a marketing firm. After it hired Work Inc. to
help with campaign development, VTSF invested another $750,000 in research and asked Work
to survey 10- to 17-year-olds on their beliefs and attitudes, hobbies and activities, media
consumption, and beliefs and attitudes about smoking and non-smoking campaigns. Another precampaign survey by Roper ASW and Harris Interactive researched similar information. The
results helped VTSF learn that smoking ads that centered on health information alone would not
be effective. Instead, Virginia tweens and teens reacted best to empowerment messages that ask
them to make decisions, and messages that show the ways smoking would make them less
appealing to classmates, friends, and romantic partners.
McKinnon writes that successful research led to VERB’s fourth effective social
marketing concept, positioning messages wherever kids were watching or listening (2007).
Research in the development of the Y Campaign highlighted the most frequently watched
television channels and the times of day and days of the week tweens and teens watched the
channels. Research also revealed the most popular radio station format among the 10- to 17-yearold audience, and the degree and type of Internet usage. This allowed VTSF to position Y
Campaign messages on networks, programs and Web pages where tweens and teens were
actually watching and listening, instead of placing the messages where adults assumed the
audience was watching and listening. The campaign’s media research revealed some surprising
outlets. While some adults might assume tweens would aspire to watch the same channels as
their older teen counterparts, many still cling to childhood. The Disney Channel, Cartoon
Network, and Nickelodeon were among the top 10 most-watched television channels in their age
group (Roper, 2001). Without research, the Y Campaign might have overlooked this important
channel.
Evans et al. (2004) analyzed how social imagery in advertisements for the American
Legacy Foundation’s Truth Campaign changed audience beliefs and assumptions about smokers
and smoking. The authors argued that audience members who were exposed to the campaign had
a heightened sense of independence from tobacco use, and increased positive social imagery of
non-smokers. The Truth Campaign accomplished this by creating a brand where “truth” teens
enjoy a rebellious, socially desirable non-smoking lifestyle and resist the manipulative overtures
of the tobacco industry.
The Y Campaign depicted youth in social settings in nearly every campaign commercial
and campaign tactic. Radio commercials featured teens signing hip hop, rap and folk/pop songs
about nonsmoking. Ydoyouthink.com featured original comments from Virginia tweens and
teens about why they chose not to smoke. Y Street encouraged youth to speak directly to other
youth about smoking. The social settings always highlighted a reason not to smoke, whether it
was two teenage girls signing a song about how a guy in class who smokes grosses them out with
his bad breath, or a student drinking a laboratory beaker filled with formaldehyde, an ingredient
in some cigarettes. Instead of casting the tobacco companies as manipulative, the Y Campaign
encouraged tweens and teens to be independent by thinking for themselves. Youth had to think
critically to see if they could identify a reason “smoking isn’t stupid.” However, the Y Campaign
may have inadvertently turned some youth off to the campaign messages by being overly critical
of some youth who do smoke. The truth campaign portrayed a non-smoking lifestyle as socially
desirable, but the Y Campaign took a different approach. VTSF portrayed the smoking lifestyle
as undesirable. The Y Campaign’s objective was the same as the truth campaign, to use the
audience’s preoccupation with social status and physical appearance as a motivational tool to
encourage youth to stop smoking. But the Y Campaign aired a commercial that showed shirtless,
overweight teens dancing to music, paired with a screen displaying a health fact that claimed
smokers are more likely to develop belly fat. Although weight is an important health
consideration, lumping belly fat in with the other physical side effects of smoking, such as
producing additional facial hair and phlegm, may have embarrassed overweight tweens and
teens, and weakened the overall effectiveness of the campaign for those individuals. It was a rare
misstep for the campaign, which remains well-known among Virginia youth. This minor misstep
was not enough to puncture the overall effectiveness of the Y Campaign, which has succeeded in
substantially reducing smoking among 10- to 17-year-olds in Virginia.
Chapter V: Conclusion
Before Virginia embarked on a campaign to reduce youth smoking in 2001, it surveyed
the state’s 10- to 17-year-olds to learn how many were using cigarettes. It found nearly 3 in 10
high school students were smokers, and 1 in 10 middle school students were smokers (VTSF,
2001). Even worse, a far greater number of middle and high school students had experimented
with smoking, trying a cigarette at least once. Among male high school students, 6 in 10 had
tried smoking (VTSF, 2001). State health officials extrapolated these numbers to calculate how
many tweens and teens, then smokers, would eventually die prematurely as adults from tobaccorelated illnesses, assuming they continued smoking. The number was astonishingly high:
152,000 Virginians under age 18 could ultimately die prematurely from smoking if they
continued the behavior into adulthood (VTSF, 2005).
So the stakes were high as Virginia created the Virginia Youth Tobacco Settlement
Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that would oversee the state’s disbursement of Master
Settlement Agreement funding to combat youth smoking. Virginia knew it wanted to create a
statewide public information campaign. In a tobacco production state, it would have been
politically easy to develop a straightforward campaign that identified the negative health
consequences of smoking and avoided any criticism of the act of smoking.
Instead, Virginia followed the path of Florida’s successful social marketing campaign to
limit youth smoking, truth. Like Florida, VTSF conducted an initial study on tobacco use, and
hired a professional marketing and advertising firm, Work, to conduct extension pre-campaign
research into tween and teen beliefs and attitudes about smoking, their lifestyle, and their
patterns of media consumption. This research provided adults at VTSF with enough knowledge
about their audience to design a campaign with effective messages that sparked a youth-to-youth
conversation about smoking, rather than an adult-led lecture. VTSF maintained this youth focus
throughout the initiative, called the Y Campaign, which stretched from 2001 to 2007. It aired the
television and radio commercials on channels that were popular with middle and high school
students, and sought constant input from Virginia youth.
This case study of the Y Campaign is significant because of the potential for health
communication goals to be achieved using social marketing concepts and strategies. The Y
Campaign successfully changed youth attitudes and awareness of the risks of smoking, and even
better, changed smoking behavior in Virginia. When the campaign began, 28.5 percent of high
school students in Virginia were smokers, and 10.6 percent of middle school students were
smoking. By the end of 2007, after six years of exposure to Y Campaign commercials and social
marketing efforts, the smoking rate had fallen to 15.5 percent of high school students and 4.6
percent of middle school students (VTSF, 2008).
The case analysis found the Y Campaign was successful because it applied concepts and
strategies from marketing to a social campaign. To develop the campaign, VTSF collaborated
with marketing professionals at Work Inc. Work understood that marketing is an exchange
process between two or more parties. In this case, the exchange was between VTSF and Virginia
youth ages 10 to 17. Work knew the Y campaign must give the audience something in exchange
by altering the product, price, promotion or placement of nonsmoking. By studying the needs
and wants of the tween and teen audience through pre-campaign research, Work learned that
youth desired to be liked by friends, peers, and potential romantic partners, and aspired to a
physically attractive appearance. Work and VTSF then marketed the product, nonsmoking, as an
item that would help the audience achieve this desire. Every Y Campaign commercial or
campaign tool communicated this message.
In addition, the Y Campaign used social marketing campaign strategies deployed by other
landmark social marketing campaigns, such as the U.S. government VERB campaign to
encourage youth physical activity. The VERB campaign was successful because it treated the
campaign as a corporate brand, sent messages through channels where the target audience was
reachable, and created an emotional affinity between the audience and the product (McKinnon,
2007). The Y Campaign was always branded with a circular “Y” logo and tagline, and precampaign research positioned television and radio commercials where tweens and teens were
listening and watching. The Y Campaign highlighted health information in radio and television
commercials that it knew would have emotional resonance for teens, such as the prospect of
yellowed teeth or a date turned off by a smoker’s coughing and hacking of phlegm.
Apart from the success of the Y Campaign, the case study is also notable because teens
genuinely seemed to enjoy the commercials, the website, the Rantmobile and Y Street. Surveys
conducted just six months after the campaign began found 59 percent of Virginia teens were
aware of the campaign, a figure that rose to 76 percent by the end of 2004, and stayed above 70
percent during the initiative. The Y Campaign demonstrated that social marketing campaigns
could be humorous and light-hearted as they strive to achieve serious ends, an approach that may
make a campaign memorable amid the cluttered media landscape.
At the same time, that media landscape is changing. The Y Campaign launched in 2001,
before cell phones, text messaging, and digital music players infiltrated a large sector of the
tween and teen market. Today digital video recorders, such as TiVo, make avoiding television
commercials easier. Satellite radio allows teens to listen to continuous music without
advertisements. Media has simultaneously allowed youth to become more connected through
social media websites like MySpace and Facebook, but lets youth screen out unwanted
messages. Consequently, the precise mix of media that made the Y Campaign work from 2001 to
2007 may no longer be effective. This will make pre-campaign research vital for any youth
social marketing campaign that plans to follow its path. Future social marketing research should
study how media and technology developments are affecting how youth receive and process
social messages, whether the messages are about smoking or other health concerns. Also, as the
United States grows more diverse, additional research is needed on the attitudes and behavior of
segmented populations in relation to tobacco use and smoking. The Y Campaign sent messages
to youth in Virginia as a whole. Future campaigns may need to take a more nuanced approach.
Different cultural traditions related to smoking may present a significant challenge to standard
social marketing campaigns. Even after the Y Campaign, a sizeable number of youth in Virginia
continue to smoke. Additional research is needed to see why those students have continued using
cigarettes, despite potential awareness of the Y Campaign and risks to their health, social status,
and relationships with romantic partners.
Finally, as an adult who watched the Y Campaign unfold on Virginia’s airwaves, I
remain impressed at the initiative’s creativity and humor. My co-workers and I often laughed
about the latest commercials as they appeared, whether it was the pathetic superhero Buttman or
“Lick,” which was so powerfully gross it was first commercial that came to mind when I began
this case study, and indeed, gave me the idea for this paper. I believe the Y Campaign had an
unintended secondary audience: adults. Adults heard and watched the same messages as youth,
that smoking would stain and yellow teeth, increase the potential for belly fat, lead to excess
facial hair, or turnoff potential dates. Although no pre-campaign research was done on Virginia
adults, I believe most adults are also fatigued by health communication campaigns that lecture
and preach. Adult smokers know their behavior carries serious health risks, but perhaps many
had not thought of the social or romantic implications before the Y Campaign. It’s unknown
whether the Y Campaign motivated any adults to quit smoking, but there may have been more
than a handful affected by its persistent, watchable messaging. My workplace was not unique.
The Y Campaign likely inspired many similar conversations around the state among friends,
parents and children, and classmates. It brought the risks of smoking back into the public
marketplace of ideas. It got residents talking, and thinking, about whether anybody could think
of a reason smoking isn’t stupid.
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