So if you thought cigarette warning labels were graphic in Canada, wait until you see the new US labels on their way according to the following story in the New York Times. I'd also suggest reading the story that ran in the Globe and Mail to get a Canadian perspective.
Basically bigger (covering half the pack), more 'scary' pictures. The strategy is obvious.... do everything in their power to scare the heck out of people from even touching a pack of cigarettes.
Kind of reminds me of someone I knew who tried to quit using hypnosis. Basically they hypnotize you in to thinking that the cigarette is actually a piece of feces. Then when you later go have a smoke you don't want to touch it, much less put it to your mouth.
The bigger and scarier the warning labels, the more an almost air of hypocrisy emerges. If cigarettes are this deadly, then why are they allowed to be sold everywhere in the world? (the answer obviously being the market demand is so high it's nearly impossible to prohibit it, therefore no point in even trying, focus instead on getting people to quit.)
When crafting a message you have to take in to consideration how human beings process such information. How does any given message interact with other ideas that they possess within their cognitive memory bank and how does it get processed through their powers of critical and emotive-based thinking processes.
This is why 'the truth' is such a powerful communications tool, because it is not only received well (by well I mean the brain doesn't easily ignore it, not that people like what they are hearing), it is retained extremely well also (people tend to remember truths and discard things that turn out to be false).
Half truths or scare tactics, while working strongly on the emotive side of a person's cognitive system, is often in conflict with their rational side - they generally 'sense' that something is not fully kosher and struggle then to figure out where they should put the information they've just absorbed.
For instance, these labels (like the one to the left of a dying cancer patient which is part of the FDA's proposed images) don't stop the ideas that make one susceptible to smoking. Ideas like 'ya, if i smoked 30 years I might die, but I'm not doing that, I'm just having a couple of smokes at a party, no big deal.' or "my grandfather smoked three packs a day for 40 years and didn't die from it." or "my friends smoke and they don't seem to be afraid, they laugh at the warning labels, so why should I be afraid?"
The real issue with cigarettes is that they are addicting and those couple of smokes, for anyone, can begin the addiction process. The bigger issue with cigarettes is not that they will kill you, but that they will lower your quality of life from the moment you start smoking (it's not that you will lose five years at the end of your life, but that you will lose quality of life throughout your ENTIRE life).
Over the top messaging, while well intentioned and feeling almost intuitively like something that will work, I believe has minimal effects. In every other area of life we recognize this, but for some reason with smoking we don't. Talk to any smoker and they will tell you they want to quit not because they are afraid of dying, but because of the effects smoking is having on their life TODAY.
Knowing your audience and how they think is key to influencing their behaviors.
How strange would it be if we put posters up around schools with pictures of homeless people and the message "Get a good education or you'll be living on the streets!" We'd all inherently realize that 'scaring' students in to studying would not be an effective way of motivating those with scholastic issues.
What smokers need is 'motivation' to quit (and non-smokers need motivation not to start) - and the best motivation for just about anything is the belief that you can do it (you can say no to peer pressure or you can quit if you choose to)! Once you believe you can do something, you'll get it done (I seem to remember a President who got elected using this kind of 'Yes You Can' messaging strategy).
Anyway, from a PR perspective the FDA will get a ton of media coverage for doing this as the images definitely take scare tactics to another level. And while I know their intentions are good (and I applaud anything that helps folks not smoke), I don't think this initiative will really impact folks that much.
I suspect the only thing that will happen is people will start buying containers to carry their smokes around in so they don't have to look at grotesque images daily. Heck, I could see the cigarette companies giving such containers away for free, making it almost 'cool' to smoke.
I think if messaging strategies have to go to this extreme, to go almost beyond scare tactics in to grotesque tactics, then it's time for society to take a good hard look at whether cigarettes should be made illegal. While this might sound strange given I smoke, I'd actually be in favor of making cigarettes illegal.
If scare tactics worked, we'd use them for everything in society. And yet, we hardly use them for anything other than justifying wars or trying to prevent people from using drugs, because we know they tend to only produce a short term response on a certain percentage of the population.
Basically bigger (covering half the pack), more 'scary' pictures. The strategy is obvious.... do everything in their power to scare the heck out of people from even touching a pack of cigarettes.
Kind of reminds me of someone I knew who tried to quit using hypnosis. Basically they hypnotize you in to thinking that the cigarette is actually a piece of feces. Then when you later go have a smoke you don't want to touch it, much less put it to your mouth.
The bigger and scarier the warning labels, the more an almost air of hypocrisy emerges. If cigarettes are this deadly, then why are they allowed to be sold everywhere in the world? (the answer obviously being the market demand is so high it's nearly impossible to prohibit it, therefore no point in even trying, focus instead on getting people to quit.)
When crafting a message you have to take in to consideration how human beings process such information. How does any given message interact with other ideas that they possess within their cognitive memory bank and how does it get processed through their powers of critical and emotive-based thinking processes.
This is why 'the truth' is such a powerful communications tool, because it is not only received well (by well I mean the brain doesn't easily ignore it, not that people like what they are hearing), it is retained extremely well also (people tend to remember truths and discard things that turn out to be false).
For instance, these labels (like the one to the left of a dying cancer patient which is part of the FDA's proposed images) don't stop the ideas that make one susceptible to smoking. Ideas like 'ya, if i smoked 30 years I might die, but I'm not doing that, I'm just having a couple of smokes at a party, no big deal.' or "my grandfather smoked three packs a day for 40 years and didn't die from it." or "my friends smoke and they don't seem to be afraid, they laugh at the warning labels, so why should I be afraid?"
The real issue with cigarettes is that they are addicting and those couple of smokes, for anyone, can begin the addiction process. The bigger issue with cigarettes is not that they will kill you, but that they will lower your quality of life from the moment you start smoking (it's not that you will lose five years at the end of your life, but that you will lose quality of life throughout your ENTIRE life).
Over the top messaging, while well intentioned and feeling almost intuitively like something that will work, I believe has minimal effects. In every other area of life we recognize this, but for some reason with smoking we don't. Talk to any smoker and they will tell you they want to quit not because they are afraid of dying, but because of the effects smoking is having on their life TODAY.
Knowing your audience and how they think is key to influencing their behaviors.
How strange would it be if we put posters up around schools with pictures of homeless people and the message "Get a good education or you'll be living on the streets!" We'd all inherently realize that 'scaring' students in to studying would not be an effective way of motivating those with scholastic issues.
Anyway, from a PR perspective the FDA will get a ton of media coverage for doing this as the images definitely take scare tactics to another level. And while I know their intentions are good (and I applaud anything that helps folks not smoke), I don't think this initiative will really impact folks that much.
I suspect the only thing that will happen is people will start buying containers to carry their smokes around in so they don't have to look at grotesque images daily. Heck, I could see the cigarette companies giving such containers away for free, making it almost 'cool' to smoke.
I think if messaging strategies have to go to this extreme, to go almost beyond scare tactics in to grotesque tactics, then it's time for society to take a good hard look at whether cigarettes should be made illegal. While this might sound strange given I smoke, I'd actually be in favor of making cigarettes illegal.
If scare tactics worked, we'd use them for everything in society. And yet, we hardly use them for anything other than justifying wars or trying to prevent people from using drugs, because we know they tend to only produce a short term response on a certain percentage of the population.
Comments
Post a Comment