Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

Chapter 7 

Advertising
 

The (advertising) campaign is a tool to frame the debate. 

It can introduce an issue and create ‘noise.’ This not only 

sparks dialogue but can itself become the environment. 

— Anne Miller, Arnold Worldwide 

Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program 

Advertising is a way to speak to your audience. It’s a communication tactic. 

For example, if you want people who use tobacco to quit, you need to give 

them a reason to do—so, something in exchange for giving up their perceived 

benefits of smoking—the nicotine high or the feeling of independence. 

Advertising is one way to present, in a clear and persuasive manner, the 

benefits of quitting tobacco use. 

If you think of a tobacco counter-marketing campaign as a conversation, 

advertising, like public relations, is about how you do the talking. In public 

relations, the message is delivered through an intermediary, such as the press. 

In advertising, the message is delivered directly to a mass audience. With 

public relations, the message may change, depending on who relays it. In 

advertising, the audience is exposed repeatedly to the same ad. In public 

relations, you gain the credibility of an intermediary, but you give up a lot of 

control. In advertising, you don’t benefit from an intermediary’s credibility, 

but you can more tightly craft the tone and content of your message, as well 

as when, where, and how often people hear it. You pay a premium for this 

control, however, when you produce an ad or make a media buy. 

Effective advertising can increase knowledge, correct myths, change attitudes, 

and even help to influence behavior. For example, Florida launched a major 

teen-oriented mass media campaign aimed at revealing the manipulative 

In This Chapter
 

• Logistics: Hiring 

and Managing 

Advertising 

Contractors 

• Strategy: Developing 

Effective Messages 

• Creative: Breaking 

Through the Clutter 

• Exposure: Show the 

Message Enough for 

It to Sink In 

• Choosing a Media 

Approach: Paid 

Media, Public 

Service Announcements, and Earned 

Media 

• Evaluating 

Advertising Efforts 

Chapter 7: Advertising 163 
What Advertising Can and Can’t Do 

Can 

■	 Communicate a message 

■	 Reach many people 

■	 Change attitudes 

■	 Create an image for the campaign 

and deceptive tactics of the tobacco industry. 

After six months, more teens felt strongly that 

the tobacco industry wanted them to begin 

smoking to replace dying smokers. A year into 

the campaign, tobacco use by middle school 

and high school students in the state declined 

considerably, in part because advertising had 

changed their attitudes about cigarettes and 

tobacco companies. 

For advertising to work, however, it must meet 

the following minimal criteria: 

■	 Offer members of the target audience a 

benefit they value, thus influencing 

them to change their beliefs, attitudes, 

and behaviors 

■	 Reach the target audience enough times 

that the message is understood and 

internalized 

■	 Engage audience members in a way that 

they can understand and that makes 

them feel understood 

Although most effective advertising is created 

by advertising agencies—firms that specialize 

Can’t 

■	 Substitute for strategy 

■	 Present complicated information 

■	 Provide feedback 

■	 Provide services 

in analyzing audiences and finding creative 

ways to reach them—the counter-marketing 

program manager doesn’t simply pay the bills 

and sign off on what the agency does. As with 

any program approach, the manager must 

ensure that the ads are more than just entertaining or informative. The program manager 

must make sure that the ads further the program’s overall objectives and that the three 

minimal criteria are met. Furthermore, the 

manager must make sure these efforts are 

accomplished within a set budget and time 

frame. This chapter takes you step by step 

through the four key aspects of managing a 

successful advertising campaign: logistics, 

strategy, creative (advertising concepts), and 

exposure. 

Logistics: Hiring and Managing 

Advertising Contractors 

Campaigns that rely solely on public service 

announcements are unlikely to reach a target 

audience with sufficient regularity to make an 

impact because they air during time slots 

donated by the TV or radio stations, so most 

states hire contractors to create new advertising, 

164 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

to buy the media needed to place the ads, or to 

perform both tasks. Some state tobacco control 

programs with limited emphasis on paid advertising may not need to hire an ad agency, social 

marketing firm, or media buyer, but states that 

plan to make advertising a significant part of 

their overall tobacco control program probably 

do. Even states planning to use creative materials produced by others will need to make a 

media buy, and they’re likely to get a better 

price and more effective placements if they hire 

professionals to do the buying. 

Once a contractor is hired, the challenges are 

far from over. A counter-marketing manager 

and the creative agency should set up guidelines for everything from schedules for payment to the process for approving creative 

materials. Then, during the day-to-day 

management of the campaign, the countermarketing manager and the agency must balance the agency’s need for creative freedom 

with the marketing manager’s need for 

strategic control. It’s no easy task. 

Selecting Marketing Contractors 

Hiring an agency, media buyer, or social 

marketing firm is often the first challenge a 

counter-marketing manager must face. The 

typical first step is writing a request for proposals (RFP) or a similar document. The rules 

about writing RFPs vary by state, but one 

simple way to start is to look at what others 

have done. People who write RFPs usually 

review previous RFPs for government-run 

marketing campaigns in their state (e.g., a 

lottery or tourism effort) and for countermarketing campaigns in other states. (See the 

State Information Forum Web site of the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at 

http://ntcp.forum.cdc.gov for sample RFPs.) 

Take the language that is most relevant to the 

challenges you face, and refine it to fit your situation. The RFP should provide potential bidders with specific objectives, a description of 

the behavior you want to change, a list that 

ranks the target audiences, and a statement of 

your potential budget. 

Most counter-marketing programs use selection committees to choose firms for creative 

services. A state agency can be protected from 

the appearance of favoritism by asking a 

multidisciplinary group of highly respected 

experts to make a recommendation or to 

select the marketing contractor on the basis of 

a thorough review of the proposals submitted 

and oral presentations. This approach also 

adds a degree of buy-in from the committee 

members and brings needed expertise to the 

decision-making process. There’s no perfect 

recipe for a selection committee, but most 

states include marketing and advertising 

experts, grassroots tobacco control activists, 

policy makers, health professionals, an evaluation expert, and representatives from the 

organization managing the campaign. (See 

Chapter 6: Managing and Implementing Your 

Counter-Marketing Program for more information on the RFP process.) 

Ultimately, the process should help ensure 

hiring of a firm that can understand your target audience, be responsive to your program’s 

Chapter 7: Advertising 165 
166 Chapter 7: Advertising 

needs, offer breakthrough creative ideas, 

maximize exposure to the message, and be 

accountable for its use of government funds. 

Try to stay focused on these goals throughout 

the selection process. Firms that provide creative services are in the business of making 

things appealing. Part of your job is to make 

sure that an advertising approach—no matter 

how funny or interesting it may be—offers a 

logical, research-based strategy that fits within 

the approach of your overall program. 

Ask three key questions about firms making 

a pitch: 

1. 	 Are they strategic? Do they have a clear 

idea about how their plan will help to 

encourage changes in attitudes and 

behaviors, not just build awareness or 

interest people in the topic? Do their 

examples of previous work reflect sound 

strategic thinking and positive, databased outcomes? 

2.	 Are they capable? Do they and their 

partners have the ability to produce 

breakthrough, memorable ads that can 

help to change beliefs and attitudes and 

to encourage changes in behavior? Can 

they manage the media buys you might 

want? Can they handle the financial 

responsibilities required by the state? Do 

they have sufficient staff to service your 

needs? 

3. 	 Are they listening to you, to the audience, to the research? Will they be 

responsive and incorporate data and 

expert perspectives into their plans? 

Creative Media 

Production Account 

Planning 

Client 

Account 

Services* 

Billing 

* Most of your interactions will be with Account Services; they will facilitate your interactions with the other 

core service areas. 

Typical Ad Agency Team 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

Managing a Marketing Contractor 

To manage an advertising agency, it’s helpful to 

understand how agencies make money and 

how they handle the work you request. Most 

ad agencies offer these core services: 

■	 Account service (also known as client 

service). All ad agencies have specialists 

who are responsible for responding to 

your needs and managing the work the 

agency is doing for you. The account 

service staff are your day-to-day link to 

the agency. 

■	 Creative. An agency’s creative services 

staff develop a range of advertising 

products, from TV spots to logos to billboards. Advertising concepts, typically 

called “creative,” are developed by a 

copywriter and an art director. The staff, 

called “creatives,” work on many 

accounts and are assigned to your projects by the account staff, as needed. 

■	 Account planning. Most ad agencies 

have in-house experts who conduct and 

analyze market research, then help to 

develop an overall strategy. Account 

planners are experts on the consumer, 

and they provide the creatives with 

insights to help in development of 

advertising ideas. Some agencies do not 

have an account planning department, 

but have a market research department 

that focuses on conducting and analyzing research. 

■	 Media. Agencies can buy media time or 

space for you, either in-house or through 

a subcontract with a media buyer. They 

keep abreast of current rates and negotiate for TV and radio time, newspaper 

and magazine space, outdoor advertising, and other opportunities to place 

your message before the audience. They 

offer expertise in finding cost-effective 

ways to reach specific audiences by 

selecting the best places to run your 

advertising and negotiating the best 

rates for these media placements. Some 

agencies hire another firm that specializes in media buying to handle this work. 

■	 Production. Agencies often have inhouse staff who produce materials, 

manage outside vendors, and help them 

to produce broadcast spots and other 

advertising. 

When you contract directly with an ad agency, 

you hire a firm whose core business is to create 

and disseminate advertising products, typically print ads, billboards, and broadcast spots, 

based on a strategy the agency develops or 

helps to develop. The agency makes money by 

charging for creating the product, buying the 

media time, or both. Most agencies are paid 

through one or more of the following arrangements: 

■	 Commission. A percentage of the media 

buy and, in some cases, production costs 

■	 Project fee. A straight fee paid for a 

specific set of deliverables (Partial payments may be made as deliverables are 

completed.) 

Chapter 7: Advertising 167 
■	 Retainer. A fee, typically paid monthly, 

for a specified scope of work (Sometimes 

there’s a guaranteed retainer and the 

possibility of additional charges based 

on the workload for a particular month.) 

■	 Time and materials. A payment system 

consisting of an hourly rate for labor; a 

number by which the hourly rates are 

multiplied (“multiplier”) to underwrite 

overhead; and direct reimbursement of 

other expenses (e.g., production costs 

and the media buy) 

■	 Performance based. Compensation 

related to outcomes (For example, a 

portion of the payment may be based 

on the level of confirmed audience 

awareness of the advertising.) 

The government rarely compensates agencies 

on the basis of results. However, such compensation is becoming more common in the private 

sector and some states are using performancebased compensation for tobacco control 

efforts. Florida, for example, hired a compensation consultant to help link the ad agency’s 

multiplier to awareness, attitude, and behavior 

measures selected by the state’s Tobacco Pilot 

Program. In Florida, Minnesota, and other 

states, the agencies have been guaranteed a 

base multiplier and growth of the multiplier 

that is contingent on achievement of certain 

targets. 

to applicable state policies. Whatever your 

state’s policy is, the best approach is to create 

an arrangement that allows the agency to make 

a reasonable profit by creating and placing 

strategically sound, memorable, insightful 

communication products for your target 

audience. The ad firm should be rewarded in 

particular for contributing to desired changes 

in the audience’s awareness, knowledge, 

attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. 

Responses to the RFP often recommend the 

reimbursement arrangement as part of a cost 

proposal. In some states, an ad agency is 

selected and then the arrangement for reimbursement is negotiated from scratch, according 

A good marketing manager should support 

the agency in ways that will help its creative 

staff develop the most effective communication products possible, while maintaining 

appropriate financial and creative control. 

How can you do that? 

■	 Establish guidelines early. 

■	 Designate a primary contact. 

■	 Trust the creative expertise you hire. 

■	 Tap expertise, not just opinions. 

■	 Protect the agency from politics. 

■	 Agree to brief, written copy strategies. 

Establish guidelines early. If both the program 

manager and the ad agency know what to 

expect, management is always easier. States 

have established all types of guidelines to 

ensure that expectations are clear. Two of the 

most important guidelines relate to approval of 

creative materials and media buys. You should 

decide with the contractor how long these approvals will take, who will be involved, and how 

revisions will be handled. Make these decisions 

in advance of the first recommendations from 

168 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

the ad agency, not as the ad development 

process takes place. Then you need to hold up 

your end of the bargain: Don’t promise five-day 

approvals if you can’t deliver. Also, you should 

think in terms of the entire process. If you plan 

to require pretesting, schedule it. In addition, 

consider developing guidelines for media buying and billing. Media-buying guidelines set 

rules for what types of media and what kind of 

exposure the firm should buy. Billing guidelines 

create deadlines and other restrictions for 

prompt and accurate billing and payment. You 

also may want to consider placing limits on the 

agency’s scope of work. For example, you may 

want to restrict a firm hired at the state level 

from soliciting additional tobacco control business—and more money—from your partners 

at the local level. 

Designate a primary contact. Just as an ad 

agency assigns specific account staff to your 

program, the state must assign a primary 

contact for the agency. This person should 

coordinate everything the ad agency is asked 

to do, so the agency isn’t pulled in several 

directions at once. This state staff person 

should have the ability to make decisions and 

represent the needs of the overall program. 

Trust the creative expertise you hire. 

Outstanding advertising is rarely the result 

of endless tinkering or a lengthy approval 

process. Instead, it results from strong strategic 

planning that uses audience insights, creativity, 

and judgment. Once a creative agency is carefully selected and hired, marketing managers 

need to place some trust in the agency. If an 

agency is hired for its ability to connect with 

“hip” teens, for example, a middle-aged health 

department official probably shouldn’t question the choice of colors for a youth-targeted 

flier. On the other hand, don’t hesitate to question whether an ad concept will be understood, 

will be perceived as relevant, will seem credible, or is consistent with your program’s goals. 

These are questions you may want to test with 

audience research. Using qualitative research, 

you can expose your target audience to a concept and analyze their reaction. (See Chapter 

3: Gaining and Using Target Audience Insights 

for more information on performing qualitative research.) 

Tap expertise, not just opinions. Your advertising doesn’t need to work for everyone 

reviewing the ad; it needs to work only for the 

target audience. As you share a product with 

your peers and superiors, try to tap their 

expertise, not their taste. For example, ask the 

disease expert if the disease references are 

accurate, not whether he or she “liked” the ad. 

Consider allowing as many final decisions as 

possible to be made by the marketing manager, 

not a more senior political appointee. Some 

states have allowed a properly tested TV spot 

to air on the sole basis of a marketing director’s 

approval. You must balance issues of control 

and accountability with an agency’s ability to 

create something new, insightful, interesting, 

and effective. 

Protect the agency from politics. Policy 

makers are very important in tobacco control, 

but they may not always be the best marketers. 

As much as possible, avoid pressuring your 

agency to make advertising decisions based on 

Chapter 7: Advertising 169 
a politician’s preferences. Many creative firms 

are very client oriented and may respond to 

political pressures that could be better handled 

by the secretary of health or another ally. Your 

ad agency should never be asked to lobby the 

legislature for funding, nor should a legislator 

lobby the ad agency to, for example, select for 

the campaign a certain celebrity who may not 

appeal to the audience. Many program managers inform policy makers that key marketing 

decisions should be made by the marketing 

staff because they are closest to the audience 

research and are skilled at interpreting it. The 

marketing manager has a responsibility to 

ensure that advertising decisions are not based 

on politics but on marketing information— 

insights about what might influence the 

audience and get results. On the other hand, 

the marketing manager should communicate 

regularly with state officials who make funding 

decisions, so they understand the campaign 

and will not be alienated, surprised, or offended by the ads they see, hear, or read. 

Agree to brief, written copy strategies. 

Keeping on strategy is one of the greatest 

challenges of any advertising campaign. 

Advertising is full of creative people eager to 

break through the media clutter with something new and exciting. Your job, however, is to 

change behavior and build support for policies, not to win advertising awards or please 

everyone. You and the agency need to agree— 

in writing—on what kinds of messages will 

affect attitudes in a way that will lead to behavior change. Write a brief copy strategy that 

clearly and simply states what you’re trying to 

do, and check everything you do against this 

written agreement. For each new advertising 

assignment, you and the agency will develop a 

“creative brief” that describes in detail what 

you are trying to achieve with each ad or campaign. This brief should include your copy 

strategy and more details. (See Appendix 6.3: 

Elements of a Creative Brief and Appendices 

6.4, 6.5, and 6.6 for sample creative briefs.) By 

requiring all your advertising to fall under a 

copy strategy, you may decide not to produce 

some very entertaining ads, but what you do 

produce will be more effective. 

The bottom line in logistics is to make it as 

easy as possible for your creative agency to 

develop effective advertising. As a marketing 

manager, you’re not only an agency’s client— 

you and the agency are partners. 

Strategy: Developing Effective 

Messages 

Just as your program must have an underlying 

logic to it, so must your advertising. As with 

your entire program, your advertising strategy 

should be based partly on a situational analysis—an understanding of the environment in 

which you operate. Who is your competition? 

What are they doing? How is your product— 

the behavior you’re seeking—viewed in the 

marketplace? One simple type of situational 

analysis marketers use is a list of the strengths, 

weaknesses, opportunities, and threats 

(SWOTs) surrounding the campaign’s goals. 

This analysis should help you to understand 

the current situation, so you have a clearer 

idea about what must change. 

170 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Chapter 7: Advertising 171 

Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

In Principles of Marketing, Kotler and 

Armstrong (2001) discuss two elements of 

advertising strategy: messages and media. A 

message should be designed to change an attitude or tell people something they don’t already 

know. Media—TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, or some other outlet—are the channels 

used to expose people to the message. (See the 

Creative and Exposure sections later in this 

chapter for information about choosing media.) 

The Message 

What makes a tobacco control message 

effective? This is a hot topic debated among 

the tobacco control community. No single 

message can claim to be the silver bullet for 

every audience in every state. Perhaps the 

most effective messages have yet to be developed, but some messages have already shown 

promise with at least one type of audience. 

Several message strategies are commonly used 

in tobacco control. You should test messages 

with your audiences before you decide 

whether your assumptions about what might 

work are correct. The brief descriptions here 

may help you to decide on the messages that 

are worth testing with the audiences you select 

for your state program. 

Health effects. The oldest and most obvious 

appeal in tobacco control is the argument that 

tobacco is bad for your health. It’s the message 

the Surgeon General’s warning carries on every 

pack of cigarettes. Messages range in intensity: 

some emphasize death, and others focus on 

sickness. The message can come as statistics, 

graphics, pictures, personal testimonials, or a 

combination of these forms. What makes the 

messages similar is the underlying logic: 

Health effect messages try to communicate, 

and often dramatize, the health risks of smoking or chewing tobacco. Some messages on 

health effects focus on the long term (having a 

shorter life or an agonizing death) while others 

focus on the short term (health effects suffered 

while one is young). Although their logic may 

seem counterintuitive, some researchers argue 
that for many smokers, especially teens and 

young adults, the idea of living with the effects 

of smoking is more frightening than the 

thought of dying from them. 

The approach that emphasizes health effects is 

criticized by some people as ineffective. They 

argue that even though most people today 

know tobacco is unsafe, many still smoke. 

However, health concerns are probably what 

led to the substantial drop in cigarette use after 

the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking 

and health, in 1964. Health concerns also 

probably led to the subsequent decline in 

smoking after the “Fairness Doctrine”1 advertising from 1967 through 1970, which broadly 

communicated tobacco’s health effects for the 

first time (USDHHS 1989). Today it’s important 

to present health-risk information that is new 

or that comes from a novel, insightful 

perspective. One example of this approach is 

California’s recent campaign linking tobacco 

use to impotence. The new information in this 

campaign alarmed some men and caused 

them to think about their tobacco use differently. Another example is the “Every Cigarette 

Is Doing You Damage” campaign from 

Australia. The campaign was aired in six 

countries, and data from follow-up research 

supported the effectiveness of the campaign in 

at least five of those countries. In this campaign, 

graphic visuals of a rotting lung, a brain with a 

blood clot, a clogged artery, and a developing 

tumor were coupled with the news that every 

cigarette smoked can contribute to similar 

damage. Other examples of the health effects 

approach are the testimonial ads developed 

and aired by many states and other countries. 

These ads poignantly describe the physical 

and emotional tolls that tobacco has taken on 

real-life smokers and their families, in the 

words of those individuals. The ads personalize 

the health effects and make them relevant to 

smokers and their friends and families. One 

caveat when using the health effects approach 

is that people sometimes don’t believe dramatizations that are overexaggerated or are too 

removed from what they see every day or what 

they can imagine. 

Secondhand smoke. Perhaps the most widely 

used strategy today focuses on the dangers of 

1 The Fairness Doctrine was an agreement within the broadcast industry to air one antitobacco message for every 

three protobacco advertisements aired. As a result, significant levels of media presence for tobacco counteradvertising messages were reached for the first time for long enough to achieve a high level of awareness. 

172 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

exposure to secondhand smoke. For more 

than a decade, counter-marketing programs 

across the country have communicated and 

dramatized the health effects of secondhand 

smoke on nonsmokers—to encourage smokers to protect their loved ones, discourage 

smoking in public places, and support policy 

initiatives, such as smokefree workplaces. 

California relied heavily on these types of messages in its successful push to support some of 

the nation’s strongest statewide tobacco control policies, such as smokefree bars and 

restaurants. These messages encourage nonsmokers to question a behavior that decades 

of tobacco advertising have tried to frame as a 

norm. Secondhand smoke messages also have 

been found to encourage smoking cessation 

because smokers have fewer places to smoke, 

fewer people will permit a smoker to light up 

around them, and fewer smokers want to 

smoke around friends and family. The strategy 

also counters the tobacco industry’s claim that 

smoking is an “individual choice.” 

Industry manipulation. This strategy aims to 

reveal to potential and current smokers how 

the tobacco industry uses manipulative and 

deceptive practices to win new customers and 

maintain current ones, regardless of the health 

consequences. These messages often talk 

about the industry’s advertising tactics, profit 

motives, history of targeting children, and 

efforts to downplay or simply deny the health 

dangers of smoking. One common message is 

that the industry targets teens as “replacement 

smokers” to take the place of smokers who 

have died. An early California ad using this 

approach is one of the most memorable TV 

spots the state tobacco control program has 

ever produced. 

Repositioning. Aimed at teens, this approach 

is a close cousin of industry manipulation, but 

its messages are part of a larger strategy that 

not only repositions the tobacco industry as a 

manipulative adult institution, but also gives 

tobacco control advocates an opportunity to 

take on the role of hip rebels. The goal is to 

undermine two benefits offered by cigarette 

brands popular with teens—rebellion and 

independence—and to offer those benefits to 

nonsmokers. Florida took this approach by 

creating and branding an edgy, rebellious antitobacco effort called “truth.” Although teens 

actually played a large role in directing the 

campaign, much of the work and development 

needed to be performed by the health department and its contractors. By making the campaign appear to be organized entirely by hip 

teens, however, this effort repositioned the 

“truth” movement, and thus nonsmoking, as 

young and hip, while making smoking seem 

old and corporate. This strategy is now the 

basis of the national “truth” campaign funded 

by the American Legacy Foundation. 

Defining the norm. Because most people 

don’t smoke, some programs use the “followthe-crowd” approach to let people know that 

smokers are in the minority. One TV spot, for 

example, informed teens that three of four 

teenagers don’t smoke. The theory is that teens 

sometimes consider smoking because they 

think everyone is doing it. They’re conforming 

to a perceived social norm. These messages 

Chapter 7: Advertising 173 
simply deflate the myth that “everyone is 

doing it.” In addition, showing that nonsmokers are the majority may empower them to 

speak up about secondhand smoke. On the 

other hand, critics of this approach worry that 

some independent and more rebellious teens 

might be attracted to smoking, because most 

people don’t do it. 

Social consequences. Messages on social 

consequences consider how tobacco use 

might affect a person’s social standing, dating 

opportunities, and other situations. Although 

teens are concerned with social consequences, 

messages from state health departments about 

social consequences in the teen culture face 

the same credibility challenges that parents of 

teens often face. One tactic to address this 

challenge is featuring older and seemingly hip 

teens as spokespeople, which gives them an 

authentic voice. Some states are also beginning to look at the social consequences in a 

global sense, considering tobacco’s impact on 

issues such as child labor, the environment, 

and poverty in the developing world. 

Chemical disclosure. Another strategy is to tell 

people about the chemicals in cigarette smoke 

or about the hundreds of chemical additives in 

cigarettes. This advertising typically tries to 

dramatize the implications of being exposed to 

the deadly chemicals known to be associated 

with smoking. One TV spot showed a family 

drinking these chemicals from beakers. 

Another ad interviewed professionals who 

worked with toxic chemicals and used protective clothing to shield themselves from those 

chemicals. The message highlighted their 

shock that the same chemicals were found in 

secondhand smoke inhaled every day by many 

people, who are unprotected from its effects. 

Addiction. Several programs have attempted 

to illustrate the power of nicotine addiction: 

Once someone decides to smoke, that decision 

isn’t always easy to reverse. One difficulty with 

this strategy is the message it sends to current 

smokers. After hearing these messages, some 

smokers may believe cessation attempts are 

hopeless. Making the addiction claim convincing for youth also has been a challenge. In 

focus groups, even teens who acknowledge 

that nicotine is addictive don’t always seem to 

understand what that means. “Once I feel I’m 

getting addicted,” one teen said, “I’ll quit.” 

An addiction message may be better used to 

supplement another message. For example, 

174 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

addiction has been mentioned in industry 

manipulation to emphasize how tobacco 

companies recruit “customers for life.” The 

power of addiction also is noted often in 

smoking cessation messages. 

Heroes and celebrities. Many tobacco control 

ads use famous actors, musicians, models, and 

athletes in the same way that commercial 

brands use these celebrities: to associate the 

product (i.e., the behavior of not smoking) 

with someone who is loved and admired. 

These heroes and celebrities have included 

supermodel Christy Turlington, actor Esai 

Morales, the musical group Boyz II Men, and 

the national women’s soccer team. Celebrities 

can also attract news media. However, it’s 

important to carefully select the heroes and 

celebrities to use as spokespeople, because 

working with them can have downsides. They 

can quickly fall from popularity, may suddenly 

become bad role models by adopting the 

behaviors you’re trying to change in the target 

audience, may command significant fees, and 

often demand a lot of creative control. 

Role models. Another strategy focuses on how 

adults and older teens are role models themselves, most commonly to their children and 

younger siblings, respectively. The essential 

message is that if you decide to smoke, others 

will follow. One ad shows a couple peering into 

their bedroom, where their children are playing dress up and are pretending to be adults. 

The couple is aghast when they see the children pretend to smoke, copying their behavior. 

This approach has been used with populations 

such as African Americans, Asians, and 

Hispanics/Latinos in which family connections 

are often very important. Counter-marketing 

programs have also used the role model theme 

to promote tobacco control advocacy. The 

“truth” campaign, both in Florida and nationally, under the American Legacy Foundation, 

showed teens taking a stand against tobacco 

advertising. One Florida ad featured teens ripping tobacco ads from magazines. Another ad, 

developed by Massachusetts, told the story of 

a group of teens who pressured a mall to go 

smokefree. 

Cosmetic effects. Like messages about social 

consequences, messages about the effects of 

tobacco use are more about appearance than 

health. Put simply, tobacco use can be disgusting. Messages about cosmetic effects rely on 

people’s concern about their appearance. By 

dramatizing consequences such as yellow 

teeth or cigarette breath, such messages tell an 

audience that tobacco makes them less 

appealing. Some messages emphasize the 

results of these effects: A Massachusetts ad 

shows an attractive teenage girl talking about 

how smokers turn her off. However, experts 

debate the efficacy of this approach. In focus 

groups, teens often say they can mask these 

effects of cigarettes with perfume, with breath 

mints, or in some other way. 

Refusal skills or individual choice. Campaigns 

centered on refusal skills or individual choice, 

which nearly always target youth, typically 

show a teenager or group of teenagers discussing their own decisions not to smoke. 

These ads try to build credibility by appearing 

to respect a teen’s ability to make an individual 

choice about tobacco use. Philip Morris 

Chapter 7: Advertising 175 
(now renamed as Altria), the maker of the 

nation’s most popular cigarette, Marlboro, 

created the largest and best known individual 

choice campaign, which carried the tag line: 

“Think. Don’t Smoke.” Qualitative and quantitative research on ads from that campaign 

showed that those ads didn’t perform as well as 

ads from tobacco control campaigns using 

other approaches. Qualitative research demonstrated that individual choice ads developed by 

state programs did not perform well either. 

Survey respondents thought that giving youth 

the choice to smoke without giving them good 

rationale for not smoking (e.g., information on 

health effects) was not a strong or helpful message and would cause some youth to choose to 

smoke. (More information about the quantitative research is available from the American 

Legacy Foundation’s First Look Report 9, Getting 

to the Truth: Assessing Youths’ Reactions to the 

“truth” and “Think. Don’t Smoke” Tobacco 

Countermarketing Campaigns (2002). 

Smoking cessation. A number of messages 

have been used to encourage people to quit 

smoking or call a hotline to help them quit. 

Many use the messages described earlier with a 

twist that will appeal to certain smokers, such 

as telling parents about the dangers to their 

children of secondhand smoke or graphically 

exposing for pack-a-day smokers the health 

effects of their smoking. In some cases, ads to 

promote smoking cessation emphasize the 

health benefits of quitting as opposed to the 

dangers of continued use of tobacco. Also, 

cessation ads sometimes focus on efficacy, 

recognizing that it is difficult but very possible 

to stop smoking. Occasionally, these ads offer 

tips on how to quit. The most successful cessation ads nearly always include an easy-toremember number for quitline services that are 

supported by well-qualified staff. 

By jointly agreeing to a copy strategy with your 

creative agency, you have logic against which to 

judge particular advertising products. One way 

to do this is to determine which strategies are 

likely to work best, test them with your audience, and then select the strategy that seems 

the most powerful. Try to capture the approach 

in a short and simple statement, perhaps a single sentence. For example, a statement that sets 

direction for a secondhand smoke ad could say: 

To increase support from nonsmokers 

for restrictions on tobacco use in homes 

and public places, we will show nonsmokers how secondhand smoke 

endangers them. 

An ad focused solely on the health dangers to 

smokers, as opposed to nonsmokers, would be 

off strategy when it comes to this objective. It 

might be interesting and even frightening to 

nonsmokers, but a message that smoking is 

dangerous for smokers isn’t based on the logic 

of the message strategy on secondhand smoke. 

If you don’t stick to your strategy, you’re not 

giving the strategy you developed a chance 

to work. 

You may have several copy strategies aimed at 

different audiences, but try not to create too 

many for each audience. Too many messages 

aimed at the same audience can have the result 

that no single message reaches the audience 

176 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

enough times to make a difference. Attitudes 

are changed only after people are repeatedly 

exposed to the same basic message. To stick to 

the strategy without wearing out a particular ad 

or message, you’ll probably want to illustrate 

the same message in different ways. You can 

produce or reuse different creative executions 

that carry the same basic message. You may 

want to use various media vehicles (communication channels), knowing they’ll work synergistically to strengthen the message’s impact. A 

vehicle is a route or method used to reach a 

target audience with a message. Examples of 

media vehicles are TV, radio, the Internet, bus 

signs, billboards, brochures, and notepads in 

physicians’ offices. 

Context of the Message 

You should also consider the context of your 

message. You’re not the only one talking to 

your audience. Your target audiences are 

being exposed to hundreds of messages every 

Chapter 7: Advertising 177 
day. Some may directly pertain to tobacco. 

Others may not mention tobacco, but still may 

influence what your audience thinks is right, 

fashionable, or simply believable. These other 

messages will affect how the audience receives 

your message. 

People consider information from many 

sources when they form opinions. Your audience may already be hearing from the tobacco 

industry, voluntary health organizations (e.g., 

the American Cancer Society), and the 

American Legacy Foundation, which is the 

antitobacco foundation created by the national 

settlement with the tobacco industry. Each 

campaign may have a different message, and 

your target audience may not recall who is 

saying what. For example, your audience may 

think the state health department’s antitobacco 

program and the Philip Morris youth smoking 

prevention effort are the same campaign. 

You can’t coordinate everyone’s messages, but 

you can consider how your effort might fit. For 

example, Legacy’s “truth” campaign is spending heavily to reach teens and young adults 

with industry manipulation and repositioning 

messages. Instead of competing for teens’ 

attention, you could choose to support this 

strategy, not with additional ads but with onthe-ground marketing efforts, such as the creation of youth antitobacco groups or “collateral 

materials” (promotional and other items such 

as T-shirts, posters, and fliers) to be used by 

interested teens. (See Chapter 10: Grassroots 

Marketing for more about promoting youth 

activism.) Or you may choose to target adults 

with messages that focus on changing norms 

around secondhand smoke or on cessation, 

both of which are likely to contribute to lower 

youth tobacco use over time. 

Creative: Breaking Through the 

Clutter 

Once you’ve explored various message strategies for the target audience and determined 

the one you believe has the most potential to 

influence the audience as desired, you’ll begin 

working toward creative development of ads. 

Instead of developing ads, you may decide to 

save time and resources and reapply previously 

produced ads from other states, organizations, 

or countries. Although some parts of this section are relevant both to ad reapplication and 

developing new ads (for example, the process 

you will go through in critiquing ads), this section focuses mainly on topics relevant ONLY to 

developing new advertising. It’s not an easy task 

to effectively translate your chosen message 

strategy into creative concepts and then to 

produce ads based on those concepts. This 

task requires a high level of strategic discipline 

and teamwork between you and the ad agency, 

with all parties contributing their talents to the 

effort. 

In advertising, details matter as much as message strategy. Two TV spots might share the 

same message strategy and even the same 

script but may be executed very differently. 

Who is talking and how they present themselves will affect the impact of the final ad. Is 

this a message from the band 98 Degrees or 

from the governor? One might be more credible defining what’s cool to teens; the other 

might be more credible with parents. Even 

178 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

Table 7.1: Pros and Cons of Advertising Media 

Format Pros Cons 

TV Spots 

TV spots are usually 15, 

30, or 60 seconds long. 

Most run 30 seconds. The 

longer spots are more 

expensive to air. 

• Reach a broad audience 

• Deliver audiovisual impact 

• Have a flexible format 

• Expensive to air 

• Fleeting exposure 

• Insufficient time for complex 

explanations 

• Typically expensive to produce 

new ads 

Radio Spots 

Paid radio spots are typically 60 seconds long; 

public service announcements tend to be 30 seconds long. You can also 

use live announcer scripts 

(“live copy ads”). 

• Are cheaper than TV spots 

• Can typically have a narrower 

target than TV spots 

• Can be produced quickly 

• Are typically longer than TV 

spots, allowing more complex 

messages 

• Audio impact only 

• Narrow reach per station 

Print Ads 

Print ads run in newspapers, magazines, and student publications and can 

be one-quarter or onehalf page or a full page. 

• Reach a specific audience, 

often including opinion leaders 

• Have short lead time (newspapers) and immediate impact 

• Very short life span 

• Compete in cluttered advertising 

environment 

• Youth and people of lower economic status often missed 

• Long lead time (magazines) 

Outdoor Ads 

Ads include billboards 

and signs on storefronts, 

buses, trains, and 

benches. 

• Can reinforce messages placed 

elsewhere (e.g., TV or radio) 

• Can repeatedly expose commuters to message 

• Can be inexpensive (e.g., transit 

space) 

• Can give high exposure 

• Limited message space 

• Damage from weather and graffiti 

• Difficult to target narrowly 

(Everyone will see it.) 

Continues 

Chapter 7: Advertising 179 
Table 7.1: Pros and Cons of Advertising Media (cont.) 

Format Pros Cons 

Point-of-Purchase Ads 

Ads are placed in stores 

where tobacco is sold. 

• Can counter tobacco advertising where the product is bought • Difficult to place (Tobacco 

industry is major point-ofpurchase advertiser.) 

Movie Trailers and Slides 

Ads appear in video or 

still photos shown before 

a movie begins. 

• Target frequent moviegoers 

(e.g., teens) 

• Can have high impact and may 

serve to “inoculate” viewers 

against images of people smoking in movies 

• Production and placement of 

trailers can be expensive 

(Production costs can be saved by 

using an existing TV spot.) 

• Targeting of specific kinds of 

movies not usually allowed by 

theaters 

• Ad trailers not allowed by some 

film distributors 

Print Materials 

Many programs use informational brochures; 

some aim materials at a 

specific market. 

• Can be inexpensive to produce 

• Have longer life 

• Allow large amount of message 

space 

• Not an “interruption” medium. 

(Target audiences must want to 

read materials.) 

• Dissemination required 

• Possibility of duplicates to the 

same individuals 

Web Banners 

“Click-through” banners 

can link commercial and 

partner Web sites to a 

program. 

• Broaden exposure on new media 

• Can be inexpensive 

• “Click-through” rates typically low 

• Pop-up ads considered annoying 

distractions by most people 

• Small message space 

Web Sites 

Many programs build 

Web sites; some sites are 

aimed at specific audiences. 

• Can be relatively inexpensive 

• Are constantly present 

• Have unlimited message area 

• Can be updated quickly 

• Need to drive traffic to Web sites 

• Compete with a large number of 

other sites 

• Maintenance and monitoring often 

required 

180 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

Table 7.1: Pros and Cons of Advertising Media (cont.) 

Format Pros Cons 

Sponsorships 

Payments are made in 

return for promotion as a 

sponsor of a concert, 

sports contest, or other 

event. The goal is to create 

a positive image for the 

campaign by associating it 

with something perceived 

as popular or attractive by 

the target audience. 

• Are typically turnkey promotional opportunities in which 

you can pay for services of staff 

to handle the event 

• Associate program’s “brand” 

with well-liked celebrities, 

brands, or events 

• Possibly expensive 

• Perception of negative association 

by some audiences 

• Creation of expectation of continued support that may not be possible 

• More limited reach than mass 

media 

Collateral Materials 

Programs may create promotional materials (e.g., 

T-shirts, key chains, and 

refrigerator magnets). 

• Can provide continued but limited exposure to target audience 

• Benefits people involved in 

activities 

• Distribution required 

• High cost for limited exposure 

what people wear can make a difference. In 

Florida’s “truth” campaign, for example, the 

real Florida teens recruited for TV spots 

changed clothes before they went on the air. 

The program’s ad agency worked with a 

wardrobe expert to select clothing that was 

more hip than the teens’ own clothes. 

Producing good creative is an art form. Beyond 

sending a clear message, advertising must be 

salient and interesting. The audience should 

feel understood and respected. Advertising can 

be tested to determine which concepts or finished ads have the highest likelihood of success, but just how it may work in the real world 

is always partly a mystery. The artistic expertise for which the creative firms are hired must 

be valued and appreciated, but it also must be 

balanced with the tobacco control experience 

and technical expertise that you bring to the 

process. You are ultimately responsible for 

ensuring that the ads that are approved have 

the highest likelihood of contributing to your 

tobacco control goal. 

Managers evaluate potential advertising in 

different ways. The key is to think broadly and 

avoid nitpicking any product to meet your 

personal tastes. If you relate everything to 

what you know about your audience and your 

strategy, you can provide the creative firm with 

the needed perspective. Consider four key 

questions: 

1. 	 Is the creative product something you can 

disseminate effectively to your audience? 

For example, you may not want to produce 

Chapter 7: Advertising 181 
a TV spot if you don’t have much money for 

a media buy; instead, radio might be a 

more cost-efficient option. 

2. 	 Is the creative product on strategy? For 

example, the product shouldn’t dwell solely 

on health effects if your strategy is industry 

manipulation. 

3. 	 Does the product reflect what you know 

about your audience? Think about 

whether it communicates persuasively to 

your audience. Will they understand it? Will 

they feel understood? Is it persuasive? Will 

the audience respond to the actors in terms 

of age, diversity, and attitude? 

4. 	 Might unintended negative consequences 

occur? Advertising exposure can’t be tightly 

controlled; other audiences will be exposed 

to these products. Consider the implications of that scenario. For example, teens 

who view a message aimed at adults about 

how many teens are smoking might begin 

to see smoking as the norm. 

Types of Creative 

Work with your creative firm to decide what 

kinds of products to use. Will billboards work? 

Should you buy radio time? What about a 

brochure? Does your budget allow for this 

advertising? The creative firm should present 

you with a plan to use several different types of 

advertising materials in a campaign. The 

materials should complement one another to 

completely reach members of your target 

audience, whether they watch TV, read newspapers, or only see billboards. (See Table 7.1 

for a list of the most common types of advertising and the benefits and drawbacks associated with each product.) 

Table 7.1 lists only some of the types of advertising available. Advertising messages are 

placed everywhere these days, from a banner 

flown above a beach to the well of a urinal. 

Your job is to determine the most appropriate 

and cost-efficient place for the audience to 

see your message, so it’s clear, widely viewed, 

persuasive, and without unintended negative 

consequences. 

You should also consider using creative materials that already exist. Even states with large 

campaigns that produce a large percentage of 

their own materials (e.g., California, Florida, 

and Massachusetts) have borrowed advertising 

executions from other states and countries. To 

help states share materials, the CDC Media 

Campaign Resource Center (MCRC) maintains 

an inventory of existing tobacco counteradvertising materials developed by a number 

of states, organizations, and federal agencies. 

By providing access to existing advertising 

materials, the resource center allows states, 

organizations, and government agencies to 

save the time and high cost of producing new 

ads. The MCRC collection includes ads for TV, 

radio, print, and outdoor use that address a 

variety of themes and target audiences. In 

addition, the MCRC negotiates rights and talent fees to simplify the process of using the ads 

in different states. (More information and a 

searchable database are available on the 

MCRC Web site, http://www.cdc.gov/ 

tobacco/mcrc). 

182 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

E-mail: mcrc@cdc.gov 

Phone: (770) 488-5705, press 2 

Web site: www.cdc.gov/tobacco/mcrc 

Media Campaign Resource Center 

In general, you’ll want to select vehicles with 

the lowest cost per thousand audience members potentially reached (CPM). However, CPM 

should be balanced with the need for highquality exposure. For example, showing ads to 

promote smoking cessation in a physician’s 

waiting room may have a high cost and low 

overall reach, but the exposures are very high 

quality, because you have a captive audience 

consisting of people preparing to talk to their 

physician about their health. 

Pretesting Creative 

Advertising can be very expensive. Producing 

a high-quality, 30-second TV spot by using 

union talent can easily cost more than 

$250,000. Airing the spot can cost much, much 

more, so before major advertisers invest 

money in airing or placing an ad, they typically 

test it to determine whether it clearly conveys 

the intended message. 

Pretesting can be performed at several stages 

in the creative process. You can pretest a 

concept, a script, a rough cut of a broadcast 

spot, or a storyboard (visuals and words that 

portray the actions in a proposed TV spot). 

(See Appendices 7.2 and 7.3 for sample storyboards.) Also, the finished ad itself can be used 

in a pretest. Pretesting won’t tell you whether 

the ad will “work”; you’ll find that out only 

after you place the ad and measure attitudinal 

changes or other results in the context of your 

entire campaign. However, pretesting can give 

you important information about whether your 

intended message is being communicated clearly to your target audience. The most common 

conclusions you can draw from pretesting are: 

■	 Overall reaction. How is the ad likely to 

make the audience feel? 

■	 Communication of a message. What 

message is your audience likely to take 

away from the ad? 

■	 Likes and dislikes. What parts of the ad are 

likely to please or anger your audience? 

■	 Confusing aspects. What parts of the ad 

are likely to confuse your audience? 

■	 Credibility. Is your audience likely to 

find the ad believable? 

■	 Relevance. Does the audience think this 

is a message for “people like them”? 

Does it apply to their lives? 

■	 Perceived motivational aspects. Is your 

audience likely to think the ad will 

prompt them to change anything? Do 

they find the ad convincing? (Attempting 

to measure the ad’s potential influence 

can be very misleading. People don’t like 

to admit that advertising might affect 

their behavior. What’s more, the ad may 

only need to affect an attitude as part of 

an overall program that will change 

behavior.) 

Chapter 7: Advertising 183 
Some pretesting efforts use larger sample sizes 

and try to measure people’s intention to 

change behavior. On the opposite extreme, 

some pretesting can be abbreviated as a qualitative communication check. The testing 

measures whether the “take-away” (messages 

and impressions left with the audience after 

viewing of the ad) was what you intended. 

Before you pretest, decide what you need to 

learn. You need to be realistic about what you 

can learn and whether you’re learning something that can be the basis for some action. 

Don’t ignore the results of your pretesting, but 

rather use them in your decision making. 

As a program manager, you can 

require your creative firm to 

pretest (1) some or all of the ads 

you’re considering for use in the 

counter-marketing campaign, (2) 

only the ads targeted at a specific 

group, or (3) only the ads that you 

believe could pose problems. You 

can also decide at what stage the 

testing would be most useful. The 

testing can be performed by the 

creative firm, a subcontractor to 

the creative firm, or another contractor you hire separately. Some 

people worry that creative firms 

won’t test their own creative products fairly, but good firms know 

it’s to their advantage to honestly 

pretest their products to find 

problems before they’re widely 

distributed. You should understand and agree to the testing 

methods selected. You’ll also want to observe 

the research, if possible, and fully understand 

the analysis. Firsthand observations will better 

prepare you to fight for the production of 

an ad or defend it once it’s produced. (See 

Chapter 3: Gaining and Using Target Audience 

Insights for more information on pretesting.) 

You and the agency should be partners in the 

planning and execution of the research and in 

drawing conclusions from the results. 

Creating a Standard Review Process 

The final version of a creative product should 

not surprise you. A TV spot, magazine ad, or 

other creative product should be the result of a 

184 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

joint effort by the creative firm and you. Again, 

as a program manager, your role is to continually evaluate whether the product is persuasive 

and on strategy, can be disseminated to your 

audience, reflects what you know about your 

audience, and is not likely to cause unintended 

negative consequences. 

You can make these judgments at several 

points in the creative process. You and your 

creative firm should agree on when your 

review is necessary. A list and discussion of 

the milestones for reviewing a TV spot are 

provided here. The TV spot is one of the more 

complicated and costly products a creative 

firm can produce and place. The process is 

similar for other creative products, such as 

print ads and radio spots. You may not have 

time to perform every step for every creative 

product, but you and your creative firm can 

decide jointly when your input would be most 

valuable. 

The milestones are as follows: 

■	 Read the creative brief. 

■	 Review the scripts or storyboards. 

■	 Attend pretesting focus groups or interviews. 

■	 Attend or listen in on the preproduction 

meeting. 

■	 Attend the shoot. 

■	 View the first cut. 

■	 View and approve the edited spot. 

Read the creative brief. The first thing you 

should review when overseeing the production 

of a TV spot is the creative brief. You may even 

want to be involved in helping write the creative brief. Some ad agencies consider the creative brief to be an internal function of the ad 

agency, developed by agency planners and 

account staff, and shared exclusively with the 

creatives. However, you have the right and 

responsibility to ensure that it’s strategically 

focused and communicates the key information and insights the creatives will need to do 

their work. This is the document that tells the 

agency’s writers and artists—the people who 

create the ad—what you want. Because the 

function of the creative brief is to translate 

your strategy into specific guidelines for the 

creative team, you may want to help develop it 

or at least review it before it goes to the creative staff. (See Appendix 6.3: Elements of a 

Creative Brief and Appendices 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6 

for samples of creative briefs.) 

Review the scripts or storyboards. After the 

creative brief is shared with the creatives, 

they’ll develop ideas for creative executions 

(e.g., the script or storyboards for a TV spot; see 

Appendices 7.2 and 7.3 for sample storyboards). 

The creative executions may be presented to 

you in a meeting. When you review the script or 

storyboard and see the intended visuals, think 

about how your audience might react and 

whether these creative concepts accomplish 

what you set out to do in the creative brief. This 

task won’t always be easy. At first, you may not 

see how the proposed ad can accomplish your 

goal. Some advertising executions cannot be 

interpreted literally. In all cases, the firm should 

be able to explain how the ad can accomplish 

Chapter 7: Advertising 185 
the goal(s) you set out in the creative brief. (See 

Appendix 7.1 for help in organizing your comments and questions about the creative concepts.) Raise any concerns you have about taste, 

language, or how you see the ad taking shape. 

Are the visuals reinforcing what’s being said? Is 

the language appropriate and understandable 

for this audience? Is there anything that might 

unnecessarily offend the audience or mislead 

people? As the content expert, you must ensure 

that the “facts” in the ad are true and can be 

substantiated. 

Attend pretesting focus groups or interviews. 

At this stage, the scripts and storyboards can 

be presented to members of your target audience to get their reactions. You should observe 

the pretesting to be sure that the audience 

understands the messages and finds the ad 

concepts relevant and clear. If you can’t attend 

the testing, read the transcripts or the report of 

the findings, watch the video, or listen to the 

audiotape. The agency personnel (e.g., account 

service, research and planning, and creative 

staff) should also attend the sessions. You may 

also want other members of your staff to 

attend. Consider inviting key stakeholders to 

observe focus groups of specific populations 

that they represent. Even though these stakeholders share many characteristics with the 

specific population, they may differ in significant ways (such as education or income), and 

observing a focus group may help them to 

better understand the participants. 

You may wish to pretest again after production 

of the TV spot, because storyboards don’t 

always adequately convey the experience of 

seeing the finished ad. You can also pretest 

using animatics or a rough version of a spot 

or print ad. One caveat is that some creative 

concepts don’t lend themselves well to focus 

group testing of a storyboard. For example, an 

ad that relies on clever special effects or a testimonial ad that relies on the candid emotions 

of a person negatively affected by tobacco use 

may not be convincing or engaging in focus 

groups where those special elements are missing. In these cases, you won’t be able to judge 

the persuasiveness of the ad concepts, but you 

still should be able to determine whether the 

audience understood the messages and found 

them relevant. 

Attend or listen in on the preproduction 

meeting. Shortly before the production of an 

ad (the shoot), a preproduction meeting is 

held for the agency’s creative staff to meet with 

the people who will actually produce the spot. 

They discuss locations, wardrobe, talent, and 

other production issues. The meeting is often 

held where the shoot will take place. If you 

can’t be there in person, it’s a good idea to join 

the meeting by phone. Most production decisions are probably best left to the agency and 

the production crew, but occasionally you may 

want to address certain issues. For example, 

you would raise an objection if they were planning something you think might offend the 

audience or might not be appropriate for your 

campaign. If you have questions or concerns, 

don’t be afraid to raise them. It’s much harder 

to make changes once the shoot is complete. 

Attend the shoot. Many marketing managers 

attend the filming of the ad (the shoot), though 

it’s not a necessity. Your role usually will be 

limited, but your attendance will be more 

186 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

important in cases where you need to weigh in 

on unanticipated issues. For example, Florida 

and Minnesota developed ads using video of 

unscripted teens criticizing the industry’s 

practices. It was important for the marketing 

manager to be present because the script was 

essentially being written and approved on the 

spot. 

View the first cut. After the shoot and some 

editing, the agency can show you a rough cut 

of the production that may not yet include all 

the edits or production enhancements the 

creative firm is planning, such as color correction, sound adjustment, sound effects, and 

music. This step will give you a chance to 

review the spot before the creative firm invests 

a lot of time and money in postproduction 

processes. The agency can tell you what can be 

changed at this point. If you have concerns 

about some aspect(s) of the ad, you may also 

want to test the ad with the target audience to 

see if your concerns are valid. Sometimes ads 

are produced and never aired. This may seem 

wasteful, but it’s smarter than spending a lot 

more money buying time to air an ineffective 

or offensive ad that will cause you problems. 

Many veteran marketers can tell you about an 

ad that never ran and how happy they are that 

it didn’t run. 

View and approve the edited spot. You should 

always review the version of the spot that you 

intend to air but try to avoid having to get 

clearance from a large number of people. 

Everyone is a critic, and sometimes it’s difficult 

to remind your superiors that what really matters is how the audience sees the spot, not how 

it’s viewed inside your department or agency. 

In many states, a large number of reviews can’t 

be avoided. Try to remind every reviewer what 

the ad is supposed to do and which audience 

it’s intended to reach. Use the pretesting 

results to support the relevance of the message 

to your audience. 

In the end, your role in the creative process 

is one of quality control. You’re not a critic, 

an editor, or an artist, but you are the person 

ultimately responsible for ensuring that your 

advertising is on strategy and effective with the 

intended audience. You may not even like the 

ad. That’s okay. You just need to believe it will 

work. 

Exposure: Show the Message 

Enough for It to Sink In 

Great advertising is worthless if nobody sees it. 

A program manager or marketing manager 

needs to ensure that the right people get the 

Chapter 7: Advertising 187 
right message multiple times. You need your 

target audience to become familiar enough 

with your message that it raises awareness, 

changes an attitude, or prompts action. This 

means they have to see it more than once. 

Many advertising experts say that, in general, 

people won’t even remember a commercial 

unless they’ve seen it at least three times. 

Others contend that TV spots must be seen 

three to seven times to be effective. In reality, 

the success of an ad largely depends on the 

quality of the creative execution and production. There are no set criteria, but one thing is 

for sure: Once is not enough. 

Advertising is not a vaccine. In a global review 

of smoking cessation campaigns by CDC and 

the World Health Organization, successful 

cessation efforts required both a “strong” and 

“ongoing” media presence. When levels of 

advertising drop, so do the calls to cessation 

helplines. You can expect levels of ad awareness to mirror the schedule of your media 

buys. Awareness may be high while TV spots 

are on the air, but it will likely drop once the 

ads stop running. 

You also need to think about when and how 

you reach your audience. The fact that you can 

reach the audience with your message at a 

certain time and through a certain channel 

does not mean you always should. For example, you might not want to run an ad on breast 

cancer during a Sunday football game. It’s a 

bad “aperture” for a media message on breast 

cancer, because football fans aren’t likely to 

change their thinking from rooting for a team 

to considering how the disease might affect 

them or their spouses. When Florida launched 

its rebellious youth antitobacco brand, the 

state could have disseminated its message in 

schools. After all, where better to reach teens? 

But the state shunned that dissemination 

approach. If teachers and principals promoted 

the “truth” brand, program managers reasoned, it would seem anything but young, 

cool, and rebellious. The approach would 

undermine the brand’s value, and in the 

process, the strategy. 

Exposure is usually measured by reach and 

frequency, which are typically translated into 

“rating points.” A rating point is the percentage 

of the target audience potentially reached 

(reach) multiplied by the number of times 

the audience will potentially see the message 

(frequency). If, on the basis of your media buy, 

50 percent of the targeted audience is expected 

to see your ad an average of three times, you’ve 

purchased 150 target rating points (TRPs). (The 

term target rating points is meant to convey 

that the rating points are specifically for your 

target audience.) Rating points are usually 

expressed in four-week figures, but you must 

always ask to be sure. An agency may add rating points together over a longer or shorter 

period. For example, an agency may talk about 

buying 1,200 rating points during the launch of 

your campaign. That statement may mean 300 

points a week for four weeks or 150 points over 

eight weeks. 

You may also hear media planners refer to 

“gross rating points” (GRPs). By definition, 

both GRPs and TRPs represent the total 

amount of rating points bought over a period 

of time in relation to an audience. Typically, a 

planner will use GRPs or TRPs to represent 

188 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

rating points for your target audience, not 

rating points for a general audience, but you 

need to check to make sure. 

Rating points vary depending on which audience is being targeted. For example, “Sabrina 

the Teenage Witch,” a TV show produced by 

Warner Bros. Television Network, would have 

much higher rating points for adolescent girls 

than for 40-year-old men, and network news 

would have higher rating points for retirees 

than for teenagers. 

Because buying media is so expensive, programs typically buy media in “flights” of three 

to six weeks, then go off the air for two to six 

weeks. If you’re introducing a campaign, you 

should be on the air as continuously as possible during the first six to 12 months, and that 

strategy is even more important if you’re trying 

to establish a brand. Awareness of the campaign will vary depending on how long a flight 

has been on the air, when it aired (e.g., time of 

day, season, programs), and how many flights 

were used over a period of time, but media are 

typically bought in a way that preserves some 

baseline level of awareness. Although ads are 

not on the air constantly, an effort is made to 

keep the program’s message constantly in people’s minds. The broadcast buy is supplemented by other vehicles, such as outdoor advertising, which is typically bought in month-long 

increments. These supplemental ads remain in 

place during the off weeks of a broadcast buy, 

and broadcast ads return to the airways before 

a dramatic dip in awareness occurs. You 

should be given a media flowchart (including 

dates, TRPs, and markets) that shows how 

each flight will take place for different audience segments. The media experts at your ad 

agency can advise you on how to maximize the 

impact of your budget. 

Again, media messages aren’t like inoculations: 

No audience becomes immune to an unhealthy 

behavior after a certain number of exposures 

to a message. Just as Coca-Cola must continue 

advertising even though the soft drink is very 

well known, tobacco control programs can’t 

simply air a message, then disappear. A constant and evolving media program with new 

and engaging messages is needed to counter 

the competitive influences on the audience to 

smoke or chew tobacco. 

How much exposure should you buy? That 

depends on your strategy, the stage of your 

campaign, the other counter-marketing activities, and your budget. Some strategies require 

more exposure than others. Some programs 

depend less on advertising and more on other 

interventions, such as smoking restrictions, 

education programs, or cigarette taxes. There’s 

no one-size-fits-all formula. 

Programs generally start with stronger media 

buys to win the audience’s attention. When 

California launched the nation’s first major 

tobacco counter-marketing campaign in 1990, 

the state was on the air almost continuously 

from April to November, buying 125 to 175 TRPs 

a week for adults and about 100 TRPs a week 

for teens. The program is now very well known 

inside the state, so media buys usually run 

three- or four-week flights of 100 to 150 TRPs 

per week, with breaks that last about a month. 

Chapter 7: Advertising 189 
“We have a maintenance level of 100 [TRPs] 

per week on the major networks,” says Colleen 

Stevens, the program’s marketing director. “If 

we have something new, we increase the buy 

to at least 150 [TRPs]. Admittedly, we’d like to 

air at higher TRP levels, but our budget doesn’t 

allow for higher levels.” 

In some cases, the best guide to scaling your 

media buy is doing what commercial marketers with similar strategies do. When Florida 

decided to base its teen-targeted campaign on 

the creation of a hip, rebellious antitobacco 

brand, the state’s ad agency looked at the 

media buys made during the launch of other 

youth brands. The state decided on a very 

aggressive buy, purchasing an average of 244 

TRPs a week on TV alone for two months and 

supplementing this presence with radio ads. 

Your creative firm’s media-buying recommendation probably will be based largely on your 

budget. One reason Florida made such an 

aggressive buy was that the state could afford 

it. The state’s tobacco settlement had specifically allocated tens of millions of dollars to the 

tobacco control program, about one-third of 

which was invested in marketing. Program 

staff also knew that many people were watching carefully to see whether the program 

would succeed. 

It’s probably a good idea to buy as much 

exposure as you can afford. If your strategy is 

sound, your message is effective, and your 

creative executions are clear and attentiongetting, the only thing standing between your 

advertising and success is exposure. 

Choosing a Media Approach: Paid 

Media, PSAs, and Earned Media 

Typically, the most effective marketing 

campaigns use multiple communication 

approaches. This is true for selling soap, persuading drivers to buckle up, or encouraging 

people not to smoke around others. Paid 

advertising campaigns, public service 

announcement (PSA) campaigns, and “earned 

media” efforts all have advantages and drawbacks, but used in combination, they offer an 

opportunity to reach audiences with multiple 

yet complementary messages. In tobacco 

control, where significant media buys have 

been taking place for some time, this sort of 

combination approach is common. 

Here’s a look at these three approaches, along 

with discussions about using them in combination and using only PSAs and earned media 

when paid campaigns are too expensive. 

Conducting a Paid Advertising 

Campaign 

A paid advertising campaign is the most effective communication tool for reaching large 

audiences with a relatively simple message. It 

lets you target specific audiences with persuasive messages that can affect a person’s awareness, attitudes, beliefs, and, potentially, behavior. 

However, conducting a sustained paid advertising campaign is expensive. Successful paid 

media campaigns conducted by states have 

ranged in cost from approximately $.50 to 

$3.50 per capita a year, and a significant portion of those funds were for paid advertising. 

190 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

A successful paid advertising campaign has a 

few key features: 

■	 Thorough campaign planning. Before 

developing a paid media campaign, you 

must completely understand the members 

of your target audience, the messages 

that influence them, and how to reach 

them. You should outline the specific 

objectives you want to achieve and then 

determine which audiences, messages, 

and media vehicles are most appropriate 

for reaching those objectives. 

■	 Sufficient budget to achieve optimal 

levels of reach and frequency. By working with a media planner, you can determine the levels of reach and frequency 

you can achieve with your budget. By 

analyzing what you can achieve with 

your resources, you can use them more 

effectively and efficiently. If you don’t 

have the resources to conduct a paid 

advertising campaign properly, it may 

be better to use the resources on another 

form of communication or to limit the 

focus of the campaign to one target 

audience or one message strategy. 

When funding increases, you can focus 

more broadly. If you choose to focus 

very narrowly at first, you’ll need to set 

expectations appropriately. 

■	 Advertising that is on strategy and 

breaks through ad clutter. Spending 

millions of dollars on ad placement 

won’t suffice if your advertising is off 

strategy or doesn’t get noticed. Your ads 

must effectively communicate a message 

that will influence your target audience. 

Effectiveness can be determined by testing your commercials among the audience. With the amount of advertising in 

today’s media vehicles, your ads must 

also stand out enough that the audience 

notices and remembers them, and they 

must be sufficiently persuasive to move 

the audience toward different beliefs, 

attitudes, and/or behaviors. 

■	 Initial, ongoing, and postcampaign
 

evaluations. To determine whether your
 

campaign has achieved its objectives,
 

you’ll need to conduct multiple research
 

studies. If possible, you should provide for:
 

– 	 A baseline measure of your audience’s precampaign awareness, 


attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors
 

–	 Midcampaign measures of your audience’s response to the advertising 

and progress toward changing 

attitudes, beliefs, and other factors, 

so you can revise your ads or media 

strategy if necessary 

– 	 A postcampaign evaluation to measure the results of your effort 

Placing a Public Service 

Announcement 

PSAs are typically useful only for reaching a 

general audience with a general message. 

Because stations are donating time, the sponsoring organization has no control over when, 

where, and how often the PSA airs. Tracking 

Chapter 7: Advertising 191 
Table 7.2: Media Characteristics 

Paid Media Public Service 

Announcement Earned Media 

Targeted Not targeted Somewhat targeted, but some audiences (e.g., low-literacy adults and 

teens) may be difficult to reach 

because they are not big consumers 

of news 

Expensive to place Inexpensive to place Inexpensive to place 

Total control of message Nearly total control of message Not much control of message but 

much more control when done well 

Expensive to produce but 

existing ads can be reapplied inexpensively 

Expensive to produce but existing 

ads can be reapplied inexpensively 

Expense dependent on event or story 

Sometimes no financial cost other 

than time 

Talent fees paid every 13 

weeks 

Credibility depends on ad 

execution and audience’s 

perspective 

Talent fees paid yearly 

Credibility depends on ad execution and audience’s perspective 

No talent fees 

Credibility typically greater for 

press stories than for ads 

Credibility somewhat dependent 

on media outlet 

data from past PSA campaigns have shown 

that as many as one-half of PSAs are run late at 

night. This lack of control over the media 

placement makes PSAs ineffective for reaching 

specific or hard-to-reach audiences and makes 

their impact on audiences unreliable. PSAs are 

better used to raise the public’s general awareness of an issue. For this reason, PSA placement is generally not recommended when 

states are trying to make a significant impact, 

unless they have no alternative because of 

funding limits. 

You have a few options for trying to place your 

PSA. The Ad Council selects certain issues for 

which it will support the creative development 

and placement of PSAs. But the organizations 

selected must provide the funds to produce 

the ads, and often, only national organizations 

or national causes are chosen. You can also 

work directly with the public affairs directors 

at networks and local stations to persuade 

them to air your PSA. 

PSAs are most successfully placed when they 

have the following characteristics: 

192 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

■	 Strong public service appeal that will 

benefit most of the station’s audience 

■	 Local relevance to the station’s viewing 

area (Relevance can be achieved by tagging the ad with a local organization’s 

name, phone number, or both.) 

■	 Coordinated as part of the bonus time 

of the paid portion of a campaign (See 

section on “Combining Approaches” 

later in this chapter.) 

■	 High-quality production value 

A little-known option for securing PSA placement is to work through state broadcasters’ 

associations. These groups offer NonCommercial Sustaining Announcement 

(NCSA) programs, in which you pay the association a fee to guarantee that your PSA will run. 

In one large state, for about $30,000 for a 

month-long program, the association will 

guarantee that 70 percent of its member TV 

and radio stations will each air the spot 15 

times, with an equal split among prime time, 

daytime, and other times. This type of arrangement is officially considered PSA use, because 

the stations are donating the airtime. The program is available only to government agencies 

or nonprofit groups. At the end of the month, 

the association provides a performance report 

outlining when and where the ads ran. This 

option is often used when funding is insufficient to conduct a paid campaign. 

Obtaining Earned Media 

Having your campaign messages reported in 

the popular press can greatly enhance the 

effectiveness of your media campaign. This 

approach is called earned media, because your 

program staff must work diligently with reporters and editors to gain news media coverage of 

your issue. These efforts can give your campaign 

credibility and additional exposure. Because 

most audiences view news media content as 

more objective than advertising, they’re often 

more receptive to the messages and perceive 

them as more credible. (See Chapter 8: Public 

Relations for in-depth discussion of earned 

media.) 

How do you gain media coverage? 

■	 Identify the appropriate contacts within the media. You can determine the
 

appropriate contacts within the media
 

by seeing who reports on your issue or
 

by calling the news outlets. You may also
 

want to note how the reporter frames
 

the issue: Does he or she seem receptive
 

to your message? 


■	 Establish yourself or your program as a
 

resource for the media. You can build a
 

productive relationship with reporters
 

and editors by providing data and background information. By positioning
 

yourself as a resource for reporters and
 

editors, you can help them in development of their stories. This relationship
 

will increase the likelihood that they’ll
 

contact you when they’re developing a
 

future story on your issue.
 

■	 Present newsworthy stories. Mass
 

media outlets are deluged with press releases and other suggestions for stories.
 

Chapter 7: Advertising 193 
When you “pitch” a story to a media 

outlet, make sure the story has true 

value for its audience. 

■	 Provide supporting materials. Doing 

the legwork for the writer or reporter 

will increase the chances of getting 

coverage of your story. Provide a press 

release, fact sheets, pictures, background information, video footage, 

short biographic sketches of key people, 

and other information, as appropriate. 

■	 Track your contacts with the media. 

Keep notes each time you contact the 

media, listing the topics of your discussions, the information conveyed, the 

reporters and media contacted, and the 

angle used in covering your issue. This 

information will make your future 

efforts more effective. 

Combining Approaches 

As mentioned earlier, mass media campaigns 

work best when paid media campaigns, PSAs 

(primarily for cost-efficiency), and earned 

media are used together. In this scenario, the 

paid media campaign serves as the core tool 

for reaching your target audience(s) with a controlled, sustained message that is most likely to 

be influential. PSAs and earned media are then 

used to supplement the paid campaign by 

reaching secondary audiences and providing a 

broader context for your campaign. 

With most paid media campaigns, you can 

negotiate bonus weight, which is extra media 

time or placements given free by the media 

outlets for your purchase of other media time 

or placements. This bonus time is usually 

given on shows for which the station hasn’t 

sold all the advertising slots. Because you can’t 

choose the time of your ad’s placement, bonus 

time may not reach your exact target, so it’s 

more suitable for a message to the general 

audience that supplements the messages of 

your paid campaign and increases overall 

public support for your issue. 

Earned media allows you to target your primary and secondary audiences more precisely. 

Media outreach will give your paid campaign 

credibility by encouraging the media to reinforce your messages. It will also provide more 

detail and supporting information than can be 

communicated in a 30-second TV spot. You 

can use media outreach to target practically 

any segment that watches or reads news and 

informational media, such as opinion leaders 

through editorial pages and news talk shows or 

parents through specialty magazines. 

Using these three approaches in combination 

will provide a greater opportunity for your 

audience to be exposed to and influenced by 

your message. 

Working With Limited Resources 

Not every organization has the resources to 

conduct a paid advertising campaign. When 

paid campaigns aren’t possible, it’s harder to 

target specific populations, but it’s still possible 

to reach broad groups or the general public. 

If you can’t afford a paid campaign, you should 

consider reusing or producing one or more ads 

for PSA use for a general audience, to increase 

awareness of your issue; then use earned 

194 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

media to focus on specific aspects of your 

issue with different audiences. The process for 

PSA and media relations efforts will be generally the same even if you don’t have a paid 

campaign, though you may have to work harder to persuade the media to cover your story. 

You can do this by conducting newsworthy 

events (e.g., press conferences), releasing new 

data, and taking advantage of any chance for 

media attention when your issue is raised by 

some outside influence (e.g., a well-known 

figure dies relatively young of lung cancer). 

Without a paid campaign, you’ll have to adjust 

your objectives to account for your lack of 

control over placement of your message. 

Evaluating Advertising Efforts 

Advertising is often the most expensive and 

time-consuming component of a tobacco 

counter-marketing campaign. With so much 

invested, several stakeholders will want to 

know whether you’re making a difference and 

whether funds are being used wisely. To 

demonstrate the success of your efforts, you 

should consider using three types of assessment: formative, process, and outcome evaluation. It’s also very important to involve an 

evaluation expert to help you develop and 

implement a rigorous evaluation appropriate 

for your campaign. 

Rigorous evaluation can help you to justify 

your spending to stakeholders by showing that 

the ad campaign, not other factors, accounted 

for changes in the target audience. Formative 

evaluation can help you to determine whether 

you have the right strategy, message, and creative products, before you invest in media 

buys. Process evaluation allows you to keep 

track of what your ad agency and other 

contractors are implementing and to ensure 

that those activities meet your guidelines and 

objectives. Once your ads have been run, the 

outcome evaluation can help you to monitor 

the exposure of the target audience to your 

message(s), their awareness of the ads, and 

their ability to recall the message(s). Most 

important, you can use outcome evaluation to 

help you determine whether changes have 

occurred in the tobacco-related knowledge, 

attitudes, beliefs, intentions, or behaviors of 

your target audience. 

How To Evaluate the Advertising 

Campaign 

Depending on the scope and costs of your 

advertising effort, you should consider using 

formative evaluation during planning of your 

advertising campaign, process evaluation 

during implementation, and outcome evaluation during follow-up. Conducting formative 

evaluation during the planning phase will help 

you to learn which communication strategies 

and ad concepts have the highest likelihood 

of being effective and whether the communication pieces you’re developing leave the 

audience with the messages and impressions 

you intended. This evaluation can include 

research such as exploratory focus groups for 

audience insights, expert reviews, pretesting 

messages and materials, and pilot testing of an 

ad campaign that uses several communication 

channels (e.g., TV, radio, print, and billboards). 

Process evaluation should be conducted as 

you implement your advertising activities, to 

Chapter 7: Advertising 195 
make sure your efforts are on track and in line 

with your guidelines and objectives. You’ll 

need to conduct rigorous monitoring by regularly completing or reviewing logs and other 

documentation tools. For example, if your 

contractor agrees to pretest an ad by a certain 

date, a log can show whether all the steps to 

conduct the pretest were completed and 

whether they were done on time. 

Process evaluation should also include monitoring your target audience’s exposure to your 

advertising. You can obtain data on exposure, 

usually measured in reach and frequency, from 

your ad agency’s reports on your media buy. 

These reports show information such as when 

and where your ads were aired, how many 

members of your target audience were 

exposed, and costs. Reports from companies 

such as Nielsen, Arbitron, and the Audit 

Bureau of Circulations are other sources of 

data on exposure. The reports can also tell you 

the demographics of the audience reached, 

when the ad ran or was aired, and the format 

of the stations that ran the ad. 

Outcome evaluation will help you to learn 

what effect your advertising is having. As 

noted earlier, you’ll at least need to conduct 

initial, ongoing, and postcampaign evaluations 

to determine whether your efforts are meeting 

your objectives. You and your evaluation 

expert will need to make certain decisions 

about methods to be used in conducting an 

outcome evaluation that’s right for you. First, 

to design the evaluation, you’ll have to decide 

which groups will be studied (e.g., smokers 

and nonsmokers) and when. Then you’ll need 

to determine who will be in your sample and 

how it will be selected. Next you should decide 

what questions to ask your sample and what 

methods to use to get the data you need. 

Finally, you must determine how the data will 

be analyzed to obtain the answers you need 

for your evaluation. 

Using Evaluation Results for 

Decision Making 

If the evaluations are conducted well, your 

efforts can yield results that provide a sound 

basis for making project decisions. For example, the findings from your ad agency’s reports 

on the media buy can help you to make 

decisions about ad placement over time. You 

can use the findings to compare results across 

markets in your state to see what worked and 

where. Also, reports that show ad placement by 

week can help you to decide how to time your 

outcome evaluation so you can gauge your 

audience’s awareness of your advertising. 

Tracking a target audience’s awareness and 

message recall of an ad, as well as their overall 

reactions, can allow you to analyze the data by 

subgroups (e.g., age and race/ethnicity), to 

determine whether the ad has different effects 

on different groups. You can then make decisions about ad design and future placement of 

ads directed to these subgroups. If you’re doing 

several types of advertising (e.g., TV, radio, and 

billboards), efforts to track awareness, recall, 

and reaction for each type can help you to 

determine which is the most effective and 

where to spend your advertising dollars. If you 

track your target audience’s tobacco-related 

knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors at 

several points during the flights of an ad, you 

also can gauge the ad’s effectiveness over time. 

196 Chapter 7: Advertising 
Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign 

Resources for Evaluation 

This chapter covers some of the basics of evaluating an ad campaign. You also should review 

Chapter 5: Evaluating the Success of Your 

Counter-Marketing Program for more information about how to assess the impact of your 

whole counter-marketing program. CDC’s 

Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) is also 

preparing a manual that focuses on outcome 

evaluation for paid counter-advertising campaigns, which is scheduled for publication in 

late 2003. (Check http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco 

for updates on the availability of this manual.) 

Another publication offering evaluation information is CDC’s Introduction to Program 

Evaluation for Comprehensive Tobacco Control 

Programs, published in 2001. 

Points To Remember 

Although creative firms produce advertising, a manager within the tobacco control program must be the 

ultimate authority on what kind of advertising to produce. To effectively manage a creative firm, while still 

encouraging innovative ideas, the manager should focus on a handful of critical questions in four areas— 

logistics, strategy, creative, and exposure. 

Logistics 

■	 What contractual arrangements (e.g., incentives, results-based payments, and penalties) might 

encourage the creative firm to focus on your goals of behavior change? 

■	 What guidelines are needed to set common expectations and ensure quality control of creative 

materials, media buys, billing, scope-of-work restrictions, and other important issues? 

Strategy 

■	 Have you and your agency developed a clear, written set of message strategies for each audience? 

■	 Do the advertising strategies coordinate with other parts of the program at both the local and state 

levels? 

■	 Considering that the tobacco industry, voluntary health organizations, the American Legacy 

Foundation, and other groups may already be reaching your audience, how does your campaign fit 

into the overall context of what your audience is hearing? How might you need to alter the campaign to be most cost efficient and effective? 

Creative 

■	 Is each creative product, from a TV spot to a T-shirt, on strategy? 

■	 Can each product be disseminated effectively to your audience? 

■	 Does each product reflect what you know about your audience? 

■	 Once people are exposed to this creative product, could unintended negative consequences occur? 

Exposure 

■	 Are you reaching your audience effectively (i.e., gaining their attention and clearly communicating 

a message) and efficiently (i.e., for a reasonable price)? 

■	 Are you reaching your audience through the right channel, at the right time, and in the right place? 

Chapter 7: Advertising 197 
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