Anti-smoking campaigns - why fear tactics don't work
With young people taking up smoking in increasing numbers, and the pro-smoking debate often gaining the upper hand over the anti-smoking lobby it is time to review anti-smoking strategies according to Macquarie University Lecturer, Julian de Meyrick.
Pro and anti-smoking lobbies
"A recent episode of South Park featured a fanatical anti-smoking group some of whom resembled monsters from horror movies and who were completely unscrupulous in their pursuit of the tobacco companies," de Meyrick says. "They were prepared to murder Cartman and pretend that he was a victim of cancer brought on by second hand smoke. The tobacco company's factory on the other hand, looked like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with employees singing as they worked.
"On the bigger screen, Thank You For Smoking takes a similar look at both sides in the tobacco debate and finds that neither side is squeaky clean."
That is the problem according to de Meyrick, the audience is caught between increasingly strident, manipulating arguments between 'one-eyed' fanatics.
"There is a tremendous amount of evidence linking tobacco smoking with cancer and a number of other debilitating, often fatal and always dreadfully unpleasant diseases," says de Meyrick. "Unfortunately, it is scientific evidence and it deals with massively increased probabilities but (usually) not certainties. This provides room on both sides to produce 'evidence' to support their position.
"To make matters worse, arguments tend to lose their impact with repeated exposure. The anti-smokers' response has been increasingly intrusive, graphic ads to crash through this resistance rather than review the underlying message strategy. A number of studies (but not all) have found that increasing the fear generated by a message beyond a certain point becomes counter-productive as the audience blanks it out or tries to reduce their fear by arguing against the message."
Major problems with current anti-smoking message
There are two major problems with the current anti smoking message says de Meyrick. The first is that the lobby is persisting aggressively with what may be a flawed message strategy and secondly the wrong audience is being targeted.
"In most countries, people take up smoking at about 15 years of age and virtually no-one takes it up after about age 20," explains de Meyrick. "In Australia, as many as 50 per cent of young people who experiment with smoking go on to be regular smokers and despite many attempts to quit, will remain smokers for at least 20 years if not life.
"If you were trying to influence a 15 year-old's behaviour, would you speak to them in exactly the same terms as you would speak to someone in their late 20s? Not if you really wanted to affect their behaviour. Furthermore, you may well speak differently to a 15 year-old girl and a 15 year-old boy.
"The anti-smokers ignore this common sense proposition and aim exactly the same fear-based message strategy at everyone, expecting it to work equally effectively on widely different audiences. In a recent paper, we showed that it is not working equally well on all groups. It is time for a review of anti-smoking campaign strategies."
For further information contact Julian de Meyrick julian.demeyrick@mq.edu.au