Health promotions are constantly shoved in people’s faces. You can not turn on the TV, go on the internet, or read a magazine without a health message being promoted. It is hard to pay attention to all the health campaigns because so many flash before your eyes. In today’s society, it is difficult to grab and hold the attention of people due to the high volume of ads and the hustle-and-bustle of people’s lives. Health campaigns and marketing strategies need to be instructive and informative, yet captivating and clever enough to make a 15 year-old on her phone stop while watching television, and say, “WHOA”, to the commercial. The ad needs to have taught her something but also make her want to take action.
the truth Anti-Tobacco Campaign
If you have paid attention to television commercials over the last few years, you’ve probably have seen at least one ‘truth’ ad. Their shocking anti-tobacco ads are hard to forget.
image from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truth-grabs-air-on-new-hulu-spotlight-series-248834971.html
The ‘truth’ is a teen-focused social marketing ad campaign that educates teens on the negative health impacts of tobacco and smoking, and slams ‘Big-Tobacco’s’ marketing strategies and processes with compelling messages. The campaign presents facts about tobacco products in a hard-hitting fashion but without looking down on people who use tobacco products. The campaign avoids sayings like, “don’t smoke” or “don’t chew”. Instead, it allows teens to form their own opinions on smoking, tobacco, and ‘Big-Tobacco Companies’ based on the facts the ads present.The famous commercials are shown during prime viewing hours on channels where teens watch the most shows, such as MTV. One example of the ad is shown below.
Link to youtube site: here
In the television commercial, the truth campaign creates a scene that goes off the fact that 1200 people die a day from tobacco. To make it more dramatic and interesting to watch, they place 1200 body bags on the sidewalk of a major tobacco company. The public, captivating scene not only captures the eye of television viewers but pedestrians on the streets of New York City.
There are a lot of pros to social marketing. It promotes and inspires people to want to make a change, not only in their life, but in other peoples’ lives. Social marketing ads and campaigns have the capability to reach millions of people. Most people in the USA have access to a television and the internet. This allows their ads to be seen and watched by millions of people. Another pro to this social marketing campaign is it is very attention-grabbing and captures the attention of teenagers. This campaign has been so effective that in 2000, 23% of teens smoked, but today only 8% of teens smoke. This shows that the social marketing strategy is effective and working.
The pros definitely outweigh the cons in a health social marketing promotion but there are some. For example in can be costly. In order to buy prime hour television time, you need to have a sufficient amount of money. It also takes a lot of people and time to construct an effective health social marketing campaign.
thetruth.com