truth campaign

Smoking has always been a controversial issue; in one form or another it has always sparked argument among people from the average consumer to the politicians. Many campaigns have been started to combat smoking in just about every possible demographic, though many of these campaigns have been funded by the tobacco companies themselves in order to “extend” their brand. A campaign that stands out in recent history is the truth.com campaign; it, unlike other campaigns, is not directed by the tobacco companies, which would cause people to assume they have no hidden agenda to promote cigarettes and the tobacco companies. The truth.com campaign is aimed at preventing smoking among teenagers as well as other age groups; its main premise is to disclose all the negative truths about the tobacco industry.

The truth.com campaign was started in 2000, as a follow up to an anti-smoking campaign done in Florida (source: http://www.social-marketing.org/success/cs-floridatruth.html). It was meant to be a campaign driven by youth against smoking that would use marketing techniques similar to those of merchandise marketing to teens. These techniques include TV advertisements, print media, viral internet campaigns and also live promotion events. The material that truth.com uses generally employs bright and contrasting colors, dramatic (extreme) camera angles and interesting movements, that all engage the fun loving teenager by sympathizing with their interests in action packed presentation of information, while all along packing a deeper meaning in every image on screen. The funding that truth.com receives comes from the National Public Education Fund, which ironically, for being a campaign not directed by big tobacco, receives most of its funds from the tobacco industry. Even though this campaign is indirectly sponsored by the tobacco industry, it is positioned in the viewers mind as being genuinely against smoking and set on bringing the tobacco companies to admit their wrong doings.

Truth.com is most prominently known for their TV advertisements, which feature a variety of approaches to revealing the truth behind tobacco companies. These approaches range from gloomy commercials that personified the statistics of tobacco related deaths and health issues, shown in this commercial: http://www.thetruth.com/infect2009/videos/baby_invasion.cfm to an comically serious use of cartoon characters and a sarcastically cheery tone to comment on the follies of the tobacco companies displayed here: http://www.thetruth.com/videos/ToughLove.cfm. These commercials all include statistical information that satirizes the tobacco industry’s attempts to cover up the grim reality of their products; the language used introduces this information to the viewers as if they are intelligent people who can benefit from accurate information that is being provided to them by the truth.com commercials.

The other noteworthy medium that truth.com targeted was the web, targeting social networking sites like mySpace and Facebook, along with their own website www.thetruth.com that is filled with anti-smoking propaganda. Their message on the web is shown in the form of interactive games, surveys, educational diagrams and videos, all of which are clearly aimed at a teenage demographic through use of bright graphics and exciting movements. One example of the graphics that appeal to teenagers is http://www.thetruth.com/facts/useFulCig/, it features a flash animation that allows the user to playfully scroll around the cigarette and discover all the “useful” components of which it is comprised. As I mentioned earlier all the imagery used in their campaign has deeper meaning, such as a game that they have about hopping across a river of applesauce http://www.thetruth.com/games/applesaucehop/ , this game may seem unrelated, but in the beginning they put it into context by mentioning the fact that a tobacco company once said that even applesauce can be harmful in large quantities. By mentioning this bit of information the game then becomes a commentary in itself, since you die if you fall into the applesauce, normally a harmless substance. Through the use of quotations from tobacco companies they are able to embed an anti tobacco message in their visitors’ minds, while they enjoy their fun website. The language used on their website is pretty straight forward, yet possessing a cleverness that appeals to the viewers in a similar fashion as their TV ads.

Since the truth.com campaign focuses mainly on broadcast media (TV and the Web) it can be assumed that they are targeting a demographic that would have the most access to these mediums; this demographic is teenagers, as they are constantly watching TV, surfing the web, checking their mySpaces and performing any other mindless activity to fill their brains with useless information. Being able to derive the demographic that the truth.com campaign is targeting also allows us to delve deeper into why they chose these mediums as their heaviest vehicles for delivering their message. It shows us that this campaign is trying to be exiting and edgy in the eyes of their target demographic by utilizing the same mediums that interest the demographic most. Also this choice of media signals that the campaign is meant to be extremely large scale, because it can reach immense amounts of people through the two most widely used forms of media.

The language used in this campaign is second only to the imagery, though it acts to reinforce the imagery. It is rather effective in delivering the message, because it uses many statistical figures, such as in this commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJTCWtcAews&feature=PlayList&p=2A0ABFCE03B7C2A9&index=18, these statistics can be understood easily by anyone and are made even more emotionally relevant by the use of heavy imagery of actual people acting like they are dead. They also use language that incorporates quotes from tobacco companies themselves and point out the silliness and fallacies presented in these quotes, as in the commercial that I mentioned above (the one that utilizes cartoon characters). This is a powerful way to use rhetoric in that it allows the viewers to sympathize with the truth.com people and to see how tobacco companies deceive them. Symbolism plays a very important role in this campaign as it is used to show every day objects in a context that makes them look dangerous, as in the case of the applesauce in the game I mentioned before or in a different light that pokes holes in the tobacco companies logic as in the case of the “useful” components of a cigarette (mentioned above). The truth campaign aims at educating teens in making the right decisions about smoking by creating a message they can relate to that makes cigarettes and tobacco companies look evil.

The campaign creates a strong message by differentiating itself from other campaigns through the use of very strong, in the sense that they move the viewer out of their comfort zone, material and creating a sense that they truly care about the teenagers by using representatives of the teenage demographic in their campaign. Their flexibility can be seen in their ability to use different ways of thinking about presenting the information to their viewers, which can be seen in the progression of style in their commercials that helps them keep up with the task of appealing to the modern teenager. The meaning and coherence of their campaign is also covered by the flexibility that they possess, because it allows them to have relevant information and statistics to create an understanding of their message in the minds of their ever changing audience.

All of these factors contribute to how their brand is established and marketed. The name that this campaign chose, truth.com, is very succinct in portraying their brand identity, seeing that whole campaign is based on providing the viewers with the truth about tobacco companies. Not only did they use this name, they have also trademarked the work “truth,” which is an implication that the only truth that matters is the one about the negative aspects of the tobacco industries, an effective and strong move to give their message that extra authority. The campaign uses a very bold approach to just about any material they present, whether it is their commercials using vivid colors or their logo which uses high contrast of orange and white, recalling a cigarette; these are both important factors in their branding strategy because they appeal to their target demographic very easily and are overall quite memorable. Their strategy is aligned with the rest of the campaign pieces in that it is bold and in being bold creates a strong message. This campaign is very successful in their branding because it has a focused goal to reveal the truth about the tobacco companies. The only brand problem I noticed is in their about us statement, http://www.thetruth.com/aboutUs.cfm it says that they aren’t for or against smoking, which is contradictory to their campaign. I say it is contradictory because if they weren’t against smoking they would not attack the tobacco industry, nor would they have exclusively negative connotations associated with smoking in their campaign. Even though this derails their apparent branding strategy, I don’t think it will negatively affect the campaign due to the strengths achieved in other sectors of their brand.