Tobacco.org

truth® Wraps up 9th Annual Summer Tour 

truth®, the largest national youth smoking prevention campaign for teens, concluded its 2008 truth® Orange summer tour across the nation this past September. The tour traveled more than 45,000 miles and directly reached more than 98,000 teens with information about the marketing tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking.

The 2008 tour marked the ninth consecutive year truth® has been on the road talking with teens about tobacco at venues and events that appeal to teenagers. This year, two crews and their signature orange "truth® trucks" made more than 60 stops across 30 states, as they traveled to some of the season's hottest teen-oriented events.

One crew spent the summer traveling with the Vans Warped Tour®, an annual summer rock festival featuring upcoming bands as well as more well-known rock acts like Against Me!, Between the Trees, and We the Kings. Another truth® crew appeared at different venues including Tony Hawk's Boom Boom HuckJam, The Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, Jubilee!JAM in Jackson, Mississippi, and ROCK THE BELLS 2008.

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Federal Government Concludes Media and Movies Influence Youth Smoking 

A comprehensive report released today from the National Cancer Institute - the leading federal agency on cancer research - provides the government's strongest conclusion to date on the media's powerful and causal effect on tobacco use. The report, Monograph 19 - The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use, concluded what we in public health have known for many years: depictions of smoking in movies and tobacco marketing promote youth smoking. These facts are nonetheless illuminating because they are now recognized for the first time as fact by our federal government.

The report provides the ammunition to tobacco control advocates around the world who are fighting to keep movies smoke-free. . . .

The report also lends further credibility to existing media campaigns that have been proven to curb youth smoking, such as the foundation's award-winning truth(R) campaign. . . .

Obviously, in a rapidly changing digital landscape, understanding the role of media in reducing or promoting tobacco use is critically important as we continue working to fight the tobacco epidemic. With limited resources, the truth(R) campaign is reaching teens from big cities to rural towns in ways we didn't imagine 10 years ago. Youth get a dose of truth(R) on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, on the road at popular teen concerts throughout the summer and through ads on television and in theaters prior to movies.

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The Truth anti-tobacco campaign arrives in Pelham 

Young people heading to Pelham on Wednesday to see skateboarding legend Tony Hawk at Verizon Wireless Music Center will also get a dose of The Truth, a nationally recognized youth smoking prevention organization.

The group is known for statements such as, "Tobacco companies' products kill 36,000 people every month. That's more lives thrown away than there are public garbage cans in NYC." The Truth organization strives for commercials and media campaigns that target 12- to 17-year-olds, said Tracy Anne Ronquillo, part of the Truth team visiting Pelham.

The campaign, launched in February 2000 by the American Legacy Foundation, strives to explain the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social costs of smoking.

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• Tobacco ads target teens in song  

The youth smoking prevention campaign "truth," created with input from the Boston ad agency Arnold, has launched a "ReMix" project on its website that features songs with anti-tobacco messages.

"Songs from the current truth advertising campaign will be getting a new twist this summer when nine innovative and well-known DJs and bands put new spins on the songs by re-mixing them in styles from house and hip-hop to electro," the American Legacy Foundation said. . . .

The latest iteration of that campaign is called the "Sunny Side of truth," and the "Sunny Side" music ReMix phase of that campaign, which launched yesterday, features such DJs and bands as Cobra Starship, Diplo, Kaskade, and Mix Master Mike (shown at right in a photo from his website), the foundation said.

Although playful and upbeat in tone, the songs convey a strong anti-tobacco message, the foundation said. The plan is to make this music available on websites that teens frequent, including websites accessible by cellphone.

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Statement by Dr. Cheryl Healton, President and CEO, American Legacy Foundation® on the Centers for Disease Control's Report on Cigarette Smoking among High School Students 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today included a report, Cigarette Use among High School Students -- United States-2007, in its weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report.

The American Legacy Foundation, the national public health foundation devoted to keeping young people from smoking and helping all smokers quit, is encouraged by some of the report's findings. It is positive progress that youth smokers who had ever tried smoking in their lifetimes declined from 70.1 percent in 1999 to 50.3 percent in 2007, after a stable period from 1991-1999. This suggests that smoking may be becoming increasingly de-normalized in our culture; with fewer young people seeing smoking as mainstream or a rite of passage. In addition, the prevalence of current frequent youth smokers (those who have smoked more than 20 cigarettes in the preceding 30 days), declined, although this decline was not significant from 2006-2007. In that group, prevalence rose from 12.7 percent in 1991 to 16.8 percent in 1999, but dropped to only 8.1 percent in 2007.

However, the more troubling data in the report found that the prevalence of current cigarette use among high school students remained virtually unchanged from 2003 to 2007. This

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American Legacy Foundation® Supports World No Tobacco Day  

– In observance of World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) on May 31, public health advocates and organizations from around the world are focusing on the critical need for continued emphasis on eliminating tobacco advertising that targets youth. Data shows that 80 percent of all smokers started smoking before age 18 and 90 percent of all smokers begin before age 20, so keeping youth from starting to smoke is vital to decreasing smoking rates and saving lives. The American Legacy Foundation� joins our colleagues in tobacco control in voicing our strongest support for efforts to safeguard youth from tobacco ads that influence them so effectively in deciding to smoke their first cigarette that often leads to life-long tobacco addictions and premature death.

Now in its eighth year, the American Legacy Foundation's truth� campaign works to keep young people from smoking by empowering them with facts and information to make their own informed decisions about tobacco use.

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People and Accounts of Note  

The American Association of Advertising Agencies, New York, presented its 2008 O'Toole Awards for Creative Excellence at its recent leadership conference. . . .

The award for public service advertising was shared by Crispin Porter and Arnold Worldwide, part of the Arnold Worldwide Partners unit of Havas, for the "Truth" anti-smoking campaign on behalf of the American Legacy Foundation.

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E-cards Encourage Tobacco Users In Quitting - Quit Smoking Support 

WeDidItStory.com, a Web site promoting The TRUTH's ?eWe Did It? campaign, has unveiled a new set of electronic greeting cards (e-cards) for users to send to their loved ones as encouragement in quitting tobacco.

The Utah Department of Health's (UDOH) ?eWe Did It? campaign is the first of its kind to customize its messages to non-tobacco users.

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Zimmerman Wins Florida's Anti-Smoking Campaign  

The Florida Department of Health has awarded its $17 million Florida Tobacco Prevention account to the Zimmerman Agency, a Tallahassee-based advertising, public relations and interactive firm. The campaign is the largest the health department has undertaken, due to huge support from a voter referendum to increase anti-tobacco-related programs.

For Florida's new anti-smoking effort, traditional approaches had to be changed in favor of messages that relate to smokers. . . .

Zimmerman will also be pressed to outperform the very successful "Truth" anti-smoking campaign created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Arnold for national health group the American Legacy Foundation. "Those are big shoes to fill. And the 'Truth' campaign focused almost exclusively on the youth segment," said Ms. Lynn. She added that the Florida health department wants to focus as much on cessation as on prevention, which means targeting older smokers. The effects of second-hand smoke and smokeless-tobacco products are also a high priority.

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Going to the wall to fight tobacco 

AT BRIGHTON: The Utah Department of Health is sponsoring The TRUTH Terrain Park at Brighton this year with a colorful display painted by a well-known graffiti artist. The park's rails and wall ride depict images of devils encouraging people to smoke and burning money to represent the high cost of smoking.

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Graffiti Art at Brighton Ski Resort Tells The TRUTH About Tobacco 

The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) is taking The TRUTH about tobacco to high-risk youth at Brighton Ski Resort with colorful urban art at The TRUTH Terrain Park. As part of a new sponsorship, The TRUTH is offering skiers and boarders discounted tickets and prizes through www.warriorsagainsttobacco.com.

The TRUTH commissioned internationally-known graffiti artists to paint the terrain park's rails and wall ride with the theme "See through the smoke, don't be manipulated." The artwork depicts images of corporate devils seducing others to smoke, burning money to represent the high costs of smoking and the satisfaction that can come from saying "no" to tobacco.

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• FlickerLab Tackles The Influence of Big Tobacco on Impressionable Teens 

FlickerLab, the New York-based development, design and animation studio, has created a :45 animated film parody, "The People VS Leaf," for the American Legacy Foundation®, whose mission it is to build a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. The spot began airing nationally on Comedy Central, December 1st.

http://www.flickerlab.com/pr/comedy_central/people_vs_leaf/

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• Anti-smoking ads' effects surprising, 'truth' campaign creates best results  

A University study explained why these ads deter smoking - or promote cigarette usage.

"Anti-smoking campaigns may not have a direct impact on adolescents' smoking. They may even have some unexpected impact," said Hye-Jin Paek, an assistant professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and co-author of a study published in the journal "Communication Research."

Unintended consequences of ads can heighten the rebellious and naturally curious nature of youth, increasing the inclination to smoke, according to the study.

Paek and co-author Albert Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggested that peer perception of the ads have the greatest impact on adolescent smoking.

"They can [be effective], though, when they reinforce the perception that their close friends listen and respond to the campaigns," Paek said.

As cited in the study, Florida's 1998 "truth" campaign proved the most effective at decreasing smoking prevalence and developing antismoking attitudes.

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• coldcut: the truth about big tobacco companies 

About This Video

the big tobacco conspiracy: why is $200 billion a year spent on films no-one sees? how tobacco companies manipulate the media

Added: 1 year ago

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• Tobacco industry efforts to derail effective anti-smoking campaigns 

Anti-smoking ads that reveal the tobacco industry's deceptive practices have been aggressively quashed through various methods found Temple University Assistant Professor Jennifer K. Ibrahim, co-author of an analysis in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

In the article, Ibrahim tracks the rise and fall of state and national efforts to curb smoking for the past 40 years. She chronicles industry strategies to prevent a campaign's creation, steer messages to smaller audiences, limit the content of the message, limit or eliminate the campaign's funding, and pursue litigation against the campaign. Ibrahim looks at campaigns in Minnesota, California, Arizona, Oregon, Florida, and a national campaign from the American Legacy Foundation.

"It tells the story behind the smoke. People often judge these ads and now you know what the tobacco industry was doing trying to undermine them," Ibrahim said. . . .

State health departments face an uphill battle when dealing with the political clout of the industry with its lobbying, campaign contributions and specials events, Ibrahim said.

One tactic also involves the industry producing its own ineffective campaigns in order to portray state programs as duplicative and a waste of public dollars. Campaigns designed by the tobacco companies patronize youth in their early teen years, with messages like "Think, Don't smoke", Ibrahim said.

In contrast, Florida's "truth" anti-smoking campaign empowered them by giving them information about how the tobacco industry tried to manipulate by marketing.

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