Things you need to know:
- It's funded by Philip Morris partly as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement, in which big tobacco companies paid $206 Billion for all the BS they spouted; this campaign is one thing being paid for by tobacco;
and
Quote:
Hye-Jin Paek, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia's College of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Albert Gunther, a professor of life sciences communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, analyzed data from surveys that asked middle school students about their exposure to anti-smoking messages and their intention 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.
Generally speaking, Paek and Gunther conclude, "the ads appear to stimulate the rebellious and curious nature of youth, making them more interested in smoking."
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You see what they did there? Tobacco can't be advertised on television -- it's illegal. But anti-tobacco ads featuring militant media-created youngsters striking back against smoking, that's fair game. So only the kids who hate the ad or are disillusioned and disenchanted with big media messages, will consider smoking. I.e., most of them.
It's almost like tobacco noticed that the anti-drug ads failed whatsoever to stop teen drug usage, and said, hey, let's get a piece of that action. It doesn't matter if they say we suck and we kill everyone and that we're deeply evil. The culture is all about the evil now; just being on the agenda we get 20%.