TheTruth.com
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| Anti-smoking campaign | |
| Industry | Health Industry |
| Genre | Health |
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Area served
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United States of America |
| Products | Truth shirts, Ads, YouTube Videos. |
| Website | thetruth.com |
Truth (stylized as truth) is a national campaign aimed at curbing youth smoking in the United States. The "truth" campaign is produced and funded by the American Legacy Foundation, a public health nonprofit organization established in 1999 under the Master Settlement Agreement between U.S. tobacco companies, 46 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five territories. "truth" produces television and online content to promote anti-tobacco messages. In August 2014, "truth" launched "Finish It", a redesigned campaign encouraging youth to be the generation that ends smoking.
The American Legacy Foundation’s "truth" campaign was modeled after a campaign developed by the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program, which ran from 1998 to 1999. Governor Lawton Chiles and a group of more than 600 youth attending the Governor’s Teen Summit on Tobacco Education established four primary goals for the Tobacco Pilot Program: change youth attitudes about tobacco use, empower youth communities, reduce the availability of tobacco products, and reduce youth exposure to secondhand smoke. To achieve these goals, the program was divided into five components for implementation and evaluation. The marketing and communication component of the program worked to establish an advertising campaign to raise awareness for the program among Florida youth.
Through their marketing campaign, the Tobacco Pilot Program set out to drive a wedge between the tobacco industry's advertising and a youth audience. The program not only assembled a team of advertising and public relations firms, but also collaborated with Floridian youth to develop a campaign that would effectively speak to their generation. Youth articulated their frustrations with the manipulative marketing tactics used by the tobacco industry, and described their ideal campaign as one that would give them facts and the truth about tobacco. From this emerged the concept of uniting youth in a movement against tobacco companies promoted through grassroots advocacy and a youth-driven advertising campaign.
In March 1998, student delegates at a summit sponsored by Florida's Office of Tobacco Control voted to change the theme of the campaign to "truth, a generation united against tobacco." In April 1998, Florida launched a $25 million advertising campaign that included 33 television commercials, seven billboards, eight print ads and four posters. With a target audience of youth aged 12–17, the Florida "truth" campaign modeled their approach after commercial marketing to teens, and used messages that "attacked the [tobacco] industry and portrayed its executives as predatory, profit hungry, and manipulative." The ads re-framed tobacco as an addictive drug promoted by the adult-establishment, and tobacco control as a hip, rebellious, youth-led movement. The grassroots effort of the campaign involved real teenagers taking on the tobacco industry as part of the 13-day "Truth Train" tour across the state.
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Wikipedia