Learning Objectives: Identify four proven strategies that exploit current cultural trends and youth lifestyles in order to successfully advance a comprehensive anti-tobacco campaign. Develop cost effective and sustainable methods that incorporate and measure the success of these strategies within a pre-existing program. Implement these strategies and achieve a quantifiable reduction in youth tobacco use within a defined period of time.
Abstract: “You wouldn’t understand” – A derisive phrase used by today’s youth to deny anyone outside their peer group the ability to appreciate their personal experiences.
For a youth focused anti-tobacco program to succeed, it must be perceived by youth as an enhancement of their status within their peer group (i.e. Cool), it must be current (i.e. Hip), and it must be seen as something distinct from what adults avow (i.e. Edgy).
Conclusions drawn from our grassroots fieldwork in 2002 confirm that significant, quantifiable, and cost-effective reductions in youth tobacco consumption can be sustained when these elements (Coolness, Hip-ness, and Edginess) are combined with anti-tobacco campaigns into a singular youth lifestyle…known only as CHE.
CHE relates to every way youth define themselves: their clothes, music, food, places they go, and people they meet. The success of a youth-focused anti-tobacco campaign is a function of how CHE youth feel about themselves after receiving the anti-tobacco message. By linking anti-tobacco programs with persons, places and things that youth perceive as CHE, the anti-message is imbedded in their lifestyle and embraced, maximizing the campaign’s opportunity for success.
Data will be cited from our work with t r u t h (FL), Reality (OK), No Limits (NE), Get R!eal (CO), and STAND (OH), and our efforts to link them with CHE brands such as Volkswagen, EXPN, SoBe, Incubus, KoRn, X-Games, and the Warped Tour. Results demonstrate a clear and cost-effective methodology to successfully advance a youth-focused, anti-tobacco campaign. So CHEck it out…it works.
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