The Effect of Branding to Promote Healthy Behavior: Reducing Tobacco Use among Youth and Young Adults

Abstract

Policy interventions such as public health mass media campaigns disseminate messages in order to improve health-related knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors at the population level. Only more recently have campaigns that promote health-related behaviors adopted branding, a well-established marketing strategy, to influence how consumers think and feel about a message. This study examines whether positive brand equity for the national truth® campaign is associated with lower likelihood of cigarette use over time using the nationally representative Truth Longitudinal Cohort of youth and young adults, aged 15–21. Logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between brand equity and the likelihood of reporting past 30-day smoking over a 12-month period. Respondents who reported positive brand equity were significantly less likely to report past 30-day smoking 12 months later (OR = 0.66, p < 0.05), controlling for covariates known to influence tobacco use behavior. Findings also translate the effect size difference to a population estimate of more than 300,000 youth and young adults having been prevented from current smoking over the course of a year. Building brand equity is a strategic process for health promotion campaigns, not only to improve message recall and salience but also to influence behavioral outcomes.

Impact of e-cigarette and cigarette prices on youth and young adult e-cigarette and cigarette behaviour: evidence from a national longitudinal cohort

“…For example, large national antismoking campaigns targeting youth, young adults and adults ran during this time period. Evidence indicates these campaigns successfully reduced smoking among all age groups,29–36 and may have also indirectly impacted smoking-related social norms through parental and peer effects and smoking denormalisation 30 37–41. These factors may have masked the relationship between price and rate of smoking.…”

Validating Self-Reported Ad Recall as a Measure of Exposure to Digital Advertising: An Exploratory Analysis Using Ad Tracking Methodology

“…Evaluations of the national anti-tobacco mass media campaign, truth ® , have used both self-reported and objective (GRP) measures of campaign exposure to establish its effectiveness in changing tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors [7,13,15,[31][32][33] However, the penetration and reach of digital communication platforms require a focused effort on examining how and to what extent traditional measures of exposure perform in this new landscape. The objective of this study was to utilize cookie technology to examine the association between a subjective measure of exposure to digital truth campaign ads (self-reported ad recall) and an objective measure of ad exposure (individual digital impressions).…”

Review of Evaluation Metrics Used in Digital and Traditional Tobacco Control Campaigns

“…A total of 7 campaigns reported evaluations on the audience’s response to the campaign, such as perceived effectiveness of the campaign or emotional reaction to the campaign. This was evaluated through surveys or interviews or content analysis of social media comments [ 14 , 15 , 25 , 30 , 36 , 51 , 53 - 58 ].…”

“…A total of 8 campaigns measured attitudes related to smoking, the tobacco industry, and the quitting process [ 14 , 23 , 26 , 36 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 51 - 54 , 64 , 67 , 70 , 71 ]. Overall, 8 campaigns specifically measured attitudes around intention to quit smoking [ 14 , 21 , 26 , 36 , 39 , 45 , 47 , 48 , 50 , 53 , 60 , 63 ]. Changes in knowledge and attitudes were measured by surveys or interviews.…”