Athens, Ga. – Some anti-smoking ads are simply
ineffective, while others actually make youth more likely to light up.
Fortunately, some are successful, and a new University of Georgia
study helps explain why.
Hye-Jin Paek, assistant professor at the UGA Grady College
of Journalism and Mass Communication, found that anti-smoking ads are most
effective when they convince youth that their friends are listening to the ads.
Otherwise, the ads appear to stimulate the rebellious and curious nature of
youth, making them more interested in smoking. Paek and co-author Albert
Gunther from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison
examined data from surveys of nearly 1,700 middle school students, and their
results appear in the August issue of the journal Communication Research.
“Anti-smoking ads
have the greatest impact on smoking attitudes and behavior when adolescents
think that their peers are listening to those messages,” Paek said. “And that
makes sense because people are more likely to listen to what their close peers
say rather than what the media says.”
Evidence that anti-smoking ads have the potential to make
youth more likely to smoke has been accumulating for the past five years. Paek
and Gunther’s study adds to that evidence and helps explain how anti-smoking
ads can be effective.
The researchers surveyed students in four middle schools
about their exposure to anti-smoking ads and their intentions to smoke. They
found that, overall, the more the students were exposed to anti-smoking messages,
the more inclined they were to smoke. The exception – where exposure to
anti-smoking ads correlated with a reduced intention to smoke – occurred among
students who said their friends were influenced by anti-smoking messages.
“Perception is sometimes more powerful than actual
behavior,” Paek said. “What we’ve found is that it doesn’t necessarily matter
how your friends respond to the ads, but how you think your friends are
responding.”
Paek said many health campaigns assume that anti-smoking
messages have a simple, direct and strong impact on individuals. She said that
by understanding the indirect route that messages often take, health
communicators can design more effective ads.
Her results suggest that campaigns don’t work by convincing
individuals to avoid tobacco, but rather by helping change the social norms
surrounding smoking. With that in mind, she said, campaigns should be designed
for a sustained, multi-year effort.
The way the message is designed is critically important,
too. Rather than using an authoritarian approach along the lines of “just say
no,” Paek urges health communicators to emphasize that most youth don’t smoke,
and for good reasons.
“Advertising professionals have only recently become
involved in anti-smoking campaigns,” she said. “We need to develop more
sophisticated appeals.”
The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute.
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