The Truth Campaign: Smoking
I may not be much of a TV person but,
when I was watching Ridiculousness on MTV, a commercial came on that
grabbed my attention. It was a commercial about the Truth campaign.
The Truth campaign is an anti-smoking campaign. The Truth campaign
teamed up with MTV to prevent smoking within teens. They have managed
to lower then number from 26% teen smokers in 2000 to only 9 % teen
smokers in 2014 (thetruth.com).
I personally am not a smoker. I am
against smoking so this campaign did not change my views at all. In
fact, reading the campaign, it made me happy to see that they are
showing this and encouraging teens to either quit smoking or to avoid
it all together.
The Truth campaign in my eyes is a good
campaign. Having less smoke in your body is always a plus. On the
flip side, I am not sure if it is good for MTV to show the campaign
because it shows the actors that MTV uses as “unpaid tobacco
spokespersons” (youtube.com). This could be a turn off for some
viewers or the actors themselves. The viewers could see this
commercial and either want to smoke because their favorite actor /
actress is smoking, or they could get upset by what they see and not
want to watch the shows / movies they are in anymore.
This campaign is a success to most
viewers because it is showing healthier choices to viewers and teens.
Instead of teens hacking their lungs up from all the smoke entering
their bodies and all of the other effects it has on their immune
system; it is showing that there are better and healthier choices to
make.
I would advocate the same solution that
The Truth campaign advocates because as stated before there is no
harm done! If anything it would be a publicity issue for the actors.
It is the actors faults that they are smoking in public. Those photos
belong to the public after they have been taken and shared on the
web. It is unfortunate for some because their publicity goes down,
but it is their own fault for taking. Every time a photo is shown,
the tobacco company is getting free advertisement and The Truth
campaign wants that to stop.
What I have learned about the process
or evolution of this campaign is that The Truth campaign wants to
stop teen smoking and crush Big Tobacco campaigns. To do this is to
target the now generation and show with their percentages that it is
possible to quit smoking and that they are the generation that will
make it possible.
About the campaign: Their goal is to
get the 9% teen smokers to become 0%. Is this a possible goal to
reach? The Truth campaign says absolutely! To do so, teens, parents,
grandparents, anyone really; all they need to do is join the campaign
and spread the word about smoking habits and how horrible they really
are!
