Sparking Thoughtful Social Media Conversation about Chewing Tobacco with Country Teens

Background: Country teens have particularly high rates of smokeless tobacco use and have proven resistant to traditional anti-smoking campaigns. “Down And Dirty” is a lifestyle branded tobacco-prevention campaign that targets youth ages 13-20 who identify with the “Country” subculture. The campaign’s goal is to make living tobacco-free more appealing by aligning the subculture’s values with a tobacco-free lifestyle. Down And Dirty reaches 13-20 year olds who are interested in trucks, mudding, and other Country activities. This session will discuss impact and takeaways from recent campaign messaging which used a culturally relevant metaphor of Country teens saving money from choosing to live dip-free and showed them culturally relevant items they could buy with those savings.

Program background: A digital activation strategy was developed in the form of an online game for youth to play. The game centers around the action of collecting dip cans in a garbage can graphic to actually “Cash Out” on Dip. The more dip cans the teens digitally throw in the garbage, the higher the value of the Country prize pack they became eligible for. This campaign implemented social media content that prioritized engagement by asking the audience to react to a Country lifestyle item and then communicated the message that if they quit dipping for a specific period of time they could afford the item. In addition to the digital experience and social media content, a real life version of the digital experience was created for youth to participate in at Down And Dirty events by use of a price-matching game. Cash Out on Dip evaluation shows that teens will engage with a digital experience if the prizes are culturally relevant and the game is interesting.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

Multiple forms of paid ads were run on Facebook to achieve our goals of game completions, social engagements, as well as increasing reach and brand awareness. Paid ads were vital to the success of the digital experience, 43% of users who clicked to visit the site through a paid ad also completed the game, which is much higher than the industry average of 3-5%.

Organic content was posted on Facebook to encourage game participants and further align the tobacco-free messaging with the peer crowd’s passions such as Country summer activities and trucks. Through the campaign there has been a 37% reduction in past 30-day chew tobacco use which was concentrated amongst those with the strongest Country affiliation.

Conclusions: Public health practitioners can use incentive-based engagement posts to engage youth in positive conversations about tobacco use. Leveraging paid social media to open a dialogue and using online experiences as a low barrier to entry can increase youth engagement with the tobacco messaging.

Implications for research and/or practice: Campaigns targeting the Country peer crowd should use straightforward, value-driven content.