2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

338195
Truth: Creating a generation for whom tobacco use is a thing of the past


Monday, November 2, 2015 : 11:10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Dave Dobbins, JD, MPH, Truth Initiative, Washington, DC
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
Legacy’s nationally recognized youth smoking prevention campaign truth®, is rallying a new generation of young people to be the generation that ends tobacco use for good.  

In 2000, when truth launched, the teen cigarette smoking rate was at 23 percent.  The 2014 Monitoring the Future study finds that the rate of teen cigarette smoking has significantly declined to eight percent. To build on this momentum, and after a hiatus in the market place, truth relaunched in August 2014 with a new campaign titled "Finish It.”

"Finish It" is designed to reach and empower youth ages 15-21 to become the generation that fundamentally changes social attitudes toward tobacco use. The campaign utilizes a fully integrated media, PR and events campaign including television, content integrations with popular TV programming, online branded integrations with trending youth online networks and personalities, social networks, online radio, search and video, cinema, and a grassroots tour with more than 100 events. The newest campaign element, "Left Swipe Dat,” is a full-length song and music video which demonstrates how smoking cigarettes is no longer considered cool or glamorous. 

The truth campaign has a proven track record of effectiveness, and research shows that there are at least 450,000 fewer smokers as a result of the first campaign that launched in 2000. 

This session will discuss:

  1. Formative research and strategic insights that went into the new iteration of truth,
  2. Receptivity to the new effort, including awareness and social media interaction, as well as compare and contrast pre-market testing data to in-field tracking responses, and
  3. Newest campaign efforts and strategic insights.

Learning Areas:

Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
Describe Legacy’s approach to using communications to create public health impact and evaluation efforts around that approach.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: as Truth Initiatives’s Deputy General Counsel since 2002, and COO since 2007, I have been intimately involved in management, development, and oversight of the truth campaign and its evaluation.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3115.0: NextGen Tobacco Control Media Campaigns