The Rest of the Story: Cost-Effective Media Strategies to Amplify Court-Ordered Corrective Statements and Advance Tobacco Control

Background:

A federal court found major cigarette companies in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and ordered them to disseminate “corrective statements” through multiple channels including newspapers, television, cigarette company websites, pack onserts, and point-of-sale. This court-ordered campaign is limited in scope and reach. Dissemination through newspapers and television has concluded. Dissemination through cigarette company websites and pack onserts is now underway. The start date for point-of-sale placements has not been determined. Previous research suggests that heightened public awareness of the court findings and corrective statements may aid tobacco control policy initiatives.

Program background:

At least two states, Minnesota and Oklahoma, implemented supplemental campaigns to enhance and amplify the corrective statements. ClearWay Minnesota and its marketing agency Haberman created a paid, owned, and earned campaign (bigtobaccolied.com) featuring red-lined, edited versions of the corrective statements. For example, the statement “A Federal Court has ordered Altria, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard and Philip Morris USA to make this statement about the health effects of smoking” was edited to: “A Federal Court has ordered us to tell the truth about the health effects of smoking, which proves we deliberately deceived Americans.” Oklahoma built upon Minnesota’s concepts, creating a social and digital media campaign evaluated for this study.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

Oklahoma targeted two audiences: 1) civically active 25 -54-year old, college-educated Oklahomans with a household income of $50,000+ and; 2) as a social media only group, 18 – 24-year-olds living in Oklahoma. The mainly social and digital media drop 1,465 page views in 6 months. Visitors ages 25 - 34 to the landing page on StopsWithMe.com were the most engaged with an average time on page of 6:18 (compared to the average site visit of 2:03). The second most engaged group were 18 – 24 age group. The highlight tactic was TrueView Video which resulted in more than one million views at $0.02 Avg CPV – less than half the cost of the industry standardwith an average; a 50% view rate which was more than double the industry benchmarkand engagements were by 95% new usersto the StopsWithMe.com website. Individual social posts with more than 120,000 engagements, as well as instant articles with a time spent of 1:17 (413% longer than the average social website session during the same timeframe) with a scroll depth of 66%, well above national averages, were also high performers with low associated costs. The effort also motivated 21 new people to actively support stronger tobacco policies and doubled enrollment in the Tobacco Stops With Me monthly newsletter.

Conclusions:

The court-ordered corrective statement campaign can be enhanced and amplified in a cost-effective manner. Oklahoma’s results for social posts, views, time spent on the website, and more people expressing support for stronger tobacco policies were above industry averages at lower than average costs.

Implications for research and/or practice:

The court-ordered corrective statements provide a unique opportunity to advance tobacco control. Creative materials from the supplemental campaigns in Minnesota and Oklahoma are adaptable for use by other states and communities.