Learning Objectives: Assess the effectiveness of brand equity in tobacco countermarketing
Abstract:
Problem/Objective: As a result of tobacco industry advertising, smoking in entertainment media, and related social images, youth perceive smoking to be socially desirable. Despite restrictions on direct marketing to youth in the MSA, young people are under tremendous social influences to smoke.
Methods: The truthsm campaign combats these influences by branding a nonsmoking lifestyle as socially desirable (Evans, Wasserman, et al., 2002). The campaign employs a branding strategy that associates desirable images (e.g., risky, cool) that adolescents have about smokers, as portrayed by cigarette ads, with nonsmokers. In effect, truthsm recasts nonsmoking as socially desirable and the image of the tobacco industry as manipulative and seeking to deprive youth of their independence. Since 2000, the Legacy Media Tracking Survey (LMTS) has collected data on truthsm brand equity among 12-17 year olds.
Results: Perceptions of the truthsm brand’s personality have been shown to be associated with intermediate outcomes such as personal sense of independence from tobacco and with decreased smoking uptake (Evans et al. in press). This presentation focuses on basic perceptions of the truthsm brand’s personality over time. Changes in brand perceptions in light of new ads and marketing approaches are discussed. Results demonstrate that youth have a highly positive perception of the truthsm brand personality.
Conclusions: These findings set the stage for future multivariate analysis of the relationship between brand equity and truthsm campaign outcomes over time. Researchers and practitioners will gain understanding of brand personality as a measure of countermarketing and the effectiveness of branding as a countermarketing strategy.
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