Strategic communication and anti-smoking campaigns

Abstract

Worldwide consumer education programs, often fear-based, designed to convince young people to stop cigarette smoking have had mixed success. This paper reviews literature on the effectiveness of anti-smoking campaigns directed at young people and presents findings from research that examined the attitudes of 234 university students towards such campaigns. The research findings, and approaches to strategic communication, are used to argue anti-smoking campaigns might be more effective in generating behavioural change among young smokers if they applied two-way techniques rather than symbolic tactics that characterise current efforts.

Effectiveness of antismoking campaigns using health shock appeals among male university students in Western Australia

“…it seemed that the "cool image" associated with tobacco use in high schools and negative peer pressure prompted youth or adolescents in becoming active smokers [6]. The exposure to smoking in films escalates the probability of adolescents smoking.…”

“…all of the respondents continued to smoke despite having extensive knowledge on adverse health risks related to smoking. deterioration of health associated with sporting activities enticed quit attempts but was unsuccessful [6,7,12]. Cessation efforts propagated through graphic health warnings on cigarette packs were ineffective in achieving the desired behavioral change.…”

“…"Smokers, especially young ones, may be prone to differentiate between the risk for smokers in general and the risk for themselves because they are optimistic and will avoid personal health consequences of smoking" [12]. Furthermore, health promotion strategies are incapable of convincing young people to quit smoking because they believe smoking relaxes them [6,27]. Mahoney (2010) recommended taking more careful consideration in response to how this target group receives and decode health information [6].…”

“…Furthermore, health promotion strategies are incapable of convincing young people to quit smoking because they believe smoking relaxes them [6,27]. Mahoney (2010) recommended taking more careful consideration in response to how this target group receives and decode health information [6]. in addition to health reasons, respondents mentioned that increasing the price of cigarettes had a significant effect in reducing cigarette consumption among australian male university students but was ineffectual to make them quit [7] which is inconsistent with the results obtained from this study [9,10,17,29].…”

“…Smokers are less likely to quit when they pick up this habit at a younger age. Mahoney (2010) noted that while smoking rates in australia amongst the general population have declined, those among university students, however, have not [6]. Tobacco smoking prevalence among australian university students was higher amongst men than women that peaked in the age group 26-30 [7].…”