| Truth | |
| Producttype: | Youth smoking prevention public education campaign |
| Currentowner: | Truth Initiative |
| Markets: | United States |
| Website: | thetruth.com |
Truth (stylized as truth) is an American public-relations campaign aimed at reducing teen smoking in the United States. It is conducted by the Truth Initiative (formerly called the American Legacy Foundation until 2015) and funded primarily by money obtained from the tobacco industry under the terms of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement reached between 46 U.S. states and the four largest companies in the tobacco industry.
The Truth campaign includes television and digital content to encourage teens to reject tobacco and to unite against the tobacco industry. When the campaign was launched in 1998, the teen smoking rate was 23%. By 2023, the use of combustible tobacco products was down to 11.2%, but overall tobacco use was at 22.2% due to the rise of e-cigarette use among teens.[1] In August 2014, a variation called "Finish It" was launched to assert that the current youth cohort should be the generation that ends smoking.[2]
The initial Truth campaign was developed by the Florida Tobacco Program, which ran from 1998 to 2003.
Through their marketing campaign, the program set out to drive a wedge between the tobacco industry's advertising and a youth audience.[3] The program assembled a team of advertising and public relations firms and collaborated with Florida youth to develop a campaign that would effectively speak to their generation.[4] Youth articulated their frustrations with the manipulative marketing tactics used by the tobacco industry and described their ideal campaign as one that would give them facts and the truth about tobacco. From this emerged the concept of uniting youth in a movement against tobacco companies promoted through grassroots advocacy and a youth-driven advertising campaign.
In March 1998, student delegates at a meeting sponsored by Florida's Office of Tobacco Control voted to change the theme of the campaign to "truth, a generation united against tobacco". In April 1998, Florida launched a $25 million advertising campaign that included 33 television commercials, seven billboards, eight print ads and four posters. With a target audience of youth aged 12–17, the Florida Truth campaign modeled their approach after commercial marketing to teens, and used messages that "attacked the [tobacco] industry and portrayed its executives as predatory, profit hungry, and manipulative". The ads attempted to re-frame tobacco as an addictive drug promoted by an adult establishment, and tobacco control as a hip, rebellious, youth-led movement. The campaign involved teenagers taking on the tobacco industry as part of the 13-day "Truth Train" tour across the state. However, reduced funding for the program, among other factors, ultimately led to the demise of Florida's Truth campaign. One of the notable leaders of this campaign was Cleveland Robinson, who was the first of 10 student leaders to lead the statewide campaign and part of the Truth Train leadership team.[5] [6]
As Florida's campaign diminished, the American Legacy Foundation adopted Florida's strategy and converted the Truth campaign into a national campaign. Generally consistent with Florida's campaign, the Truth Initiative's version of the campaign featured messages highlighting the deceptive practices of tobacco companies and facts about the deadly effects of tobacco.
The campaign aims for a light-hearted tone in its advertisements. In contrast to the heavier tone adopted by many anti-tobacco campaigns, the strategy behind the Truth campaign is to emphasize the facts about tobacco products and industry marketing practices, without preaching or talking down to its target audience.[7] The underlying theme is one of tobacco industry manipulation.[8] With advertisements featuring youths confronting the tobacco industry, the Truth Initiative built a brand focused on empowering youth to construct positive, tobacco-free identities. Above all, the campaign avoids making directive statements telling youth not to smoke, and instead highlights alleged deceptive advertising practice and negative effects of tobacco use in order to persuade them to make that decision themselves.[9] The campaign attempts to manipulate youths' desire to rebel and to assert their independence towards its tobacco use reduction goal.[10]
Many of the advertisements produced for the Truth campaign focus on selectively chosen facts about the ingredients in cigarettes and the consequences of smoking, including addiction, disease, and death. A large portion of the material included in the Truth campaign advertisements were are highlights from tobacco industry documents that were made publicly accessible following the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. The Truth Tobacco Documents Library, created in 2002 and managed by the University of California San Francisco, houses millions of formerly secret tobacco industry internal corporate documents.
The Truth campaign's initial objective was to "change social norms and reduce youth smoking."[11] In building a strategy to accomplish this goal, the campaign designers looked to marketing and social science research, evidence from other successful campaigns, and engaged in conversations with teen audiences. This research revealed that although youth were aware of the deadly nature of cigarettes, they were attracted to smoking as a tool for rebellion and empowerment. The