Study says industry anti-smoking ads ineffective

EUGENE, Ore. – An Oregon State University study suggests that anti-smoking ads by the tobacco industry targeted at youth and their parents do not work and might actually encourage teens to smoke.

Brian Flay, a professor in Oregon State’s department of public health in Corvallis, was one of nine researchers who studied tobacco industry ads aimed at preventing youth smoking.

He said that, at best, the ads have no effect. And he said some, particularly those aimed at parents, had the opposite effect.

“It actually encourages it, especially when kids see those ads targeted to parents,” Flay said. “If they see those, there’s a 12 percent increase in the likelihood they’ll become smokers.”

Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA disputes those results.

Philip Morris says not only has it spent $1 billion to develop and disseminate effective advertising aimed at deterring youth smoking, but it also has research that shows the ads work. It says the ads are based on widely accepted research and don’t carry any hidden messages.

“There’s nothing in our research that raises the concerns indicated in the study,” said David Sutton, a spokesman for the company. “Our research shows that what we’re doing is the right approach, it’s effective with parents and kids are not taking away any unintended messages.”

The new study appears in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The lead author is Melanie Wakefield of the Center for Behavioral Research in Cancer in Melbourne, Australia.

Researchers surveyed more than 100,000 youths in grades eight, 10 and 12 and focused on anti-smoking campaigns by Philip Morris that ran from 1999 to 2003. It used Nielsen Media Research data to determine the prevalence of anti-smoking ads and surveys conducted by schools to determine youth attitudes and perceptions about smoking during that period.

The ads aimed at youths used the slogan “Think. Don’t smoke” and told teens that they didn’t have to smoke to fit in. Those targeting parents urged them to talk with their children about the hazards of smoking using the slogan “Talk. They’ll listen.”

Flay said researchers were immediately skeptical of the industry campaign.

Earlier research on anti-smoking ads sponsored by states and the American Legacy Foundation showed that those efforts helped deter youth smoking. The foundation is a national anti-smoking group funded with proceeds from the massive settlement that ended lawsuits brought by the states against tobacco companies.

But industry ads seem to have the opposite of their intended effect, Flay said.

Those aimed directly at youth resulted in a 3 percent stronger intention to smoke among all age groups, and those aimed at parents but watched by their children resulted in a 12 percent increase in the likelihood that 10th- and 12th-graders would become smokers.

Sutton disputed that. He said research by Philip Morris showed that 61 percent of parents with children between ages 10 and 17 reported seeing one or more of its ads, and that of those, 61 percent reported that they talked to their children about not smoking as a result.