Problem/Objective: To create an informative and entertaining website to act as an additional media channel for The TRUTH anti-tobacco media campaign.

Methods: Every year the Utah Department of Health uses advertising to communicate our tobacco-free message to youth. Concurrently, our audience is inundated with myriad other advertising messages and slogans daily, many of which are ignored. To be most effective, social marketing principles tell us we need to go where they are, and give them something they like there.

Where are they? The number of teenagers using the internet grew 24% from 2000-2004. 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online.

What are they doing? There is an 81 percent likelihood that teens will be playing on-line games and an 89 percent likelihood they will be reading/checking email

So… To go after this group effectively and round off an already successful campaign we developed a website with a mix of flash and text, free games, community promotions, give-a-ways, video and audio, downloads, uploads and tobacco information

Results: Two months after the launch in December, 2006, the site has had just over 20,000 unique visitors and 4,500 returning visitors. The site has had 125,000 total page views; on average, a visitor views six pages of our site. Users stay for almost 5 ½ minutes; in comparison, the national average length of stay on a website is just under two minutes.

Conclusions: A website with a mix of entertainment and education can reach and retain youth.