What Defines an Effective Anti-Tobacco TV Advertisement? A Pilot Study among Greek Adolescents

Constantine I Vardavas,Evridiki Patelarou,Gregory N Connolly,Christos Lionis,Emmanouil K Symvoulakis

doi:10.3390/ijerph7010078

Abstract

As the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) calls for public health awareness on tobacco use, mass media campaigns should be appropriately designed so as to maximize their effectiveness. In this methodological pilot study, 95 Greek adolescents (mean age 15 ± 1.8 years), were shown seven different anti tobacco ads, and asked to rate the ad theme, message and emotional context on a 1−7 Likert scale. Health related ads were rated the highest, and as identified through the logistic regression analysis, adolescents who perceived an ad to be emotional or to have a clear message that was relevant to them, were more likely to rate the ad as more effective. The strong agreement between the above findings and the existing literature indicates the applicability of this pilot study’s methodological approach.

Highlights

Mass media have played a key role in the historical increases and decreases in tobacco use globally, and remain a powerful tool for public health advocates, as an avenue of projecting health related messages [1]
Greece has recently initiated a stricter tobacco control plan that will aim to regulate tobacco advertising, smoke free areas and in parallel help changing smoking norms and the acceptance of smoking among the local population of Greece [8]. Despite this new challenge, there is currently a lack of regional translational research on how to promote the population’s adherence to the changes of the upcoming tobacco control policy. Taking this fact into account, with this pilot study we aimed to investigate into the different factors that mediate the effectiveness of an anti-tobacco advertisement and how these factors can be successfully measured by applying a simple methodological approach among a convenience sample of Greek adolescents
The results of this pilot study suggest that among youth, the effectiveness of a mass media anti-tobacco TV campaign is strongly related to the ads clarity, relevance to youth and its ability to make them “stop and think”

Summary

Introduction

Mass media have played a key role in the historical increases and decreases in tobacco use globally, and remain a powerful tool for public health advocates, as an avenue of projecting health related messages [1]. Through this aspect it has been suggested that to be influenced by a message, an audience must be exposed to it, pay attention to and understand it, and develop a cognitive or affective response [2]. Even if many public health campaigns have focused on increasing the individuals knowledge about the risk of disease development, it is the individual’s feelings (about activities with health consequences) that predict behavior better than the knowledge of the risks incurred [5]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion