Tobacco – Taking on a Killer through the Media

Andy LloydMedia, Communications and Social Marketing ManagerFreshandy.lloyd@freshne.comTel: 0191 23872003

To cover

• The role of PR• Limitations and challenges• Aligning our goals with the media’s news

agenda• Case studies• Summary

How the tobacco industry used PR to fuel an addiction:

•Edward Bernays (1882) “founder of modern PR” - hired by the American Tobacco Company to reverse taboo against women smoking in public•Cigarettes as "torches of freedom" and their denial to women in public symbolized male oppression•New York debutantes made a statement for freedom by smoking while marching in the 1929 Easter parade to create a new social norm•PR helped create these norms – over time it can help reverse them too

Mad men

Role of news media:

• Provide important health information for the general public and create discussions in communities

• Act as a trigger to quit attempts during gaps in paid for campaigns

• Provide rationale and build support for policy measures to reduce smoking

• Bring alive medical information such as new scientific studies about harm of tobacco or new ways to quit

• Increase reach of campaigns • Add the voice of credible messengers such as doctors

and real people for quitting and advocacy• Signpost local support to quit

• All PR we generate must compete with thousands of events and issues that happen each day

• Fatigue about smoking related stories compared to other health areas

• Journalists have preconceptions about what they want from a story

• No controls over message, eg a quitter advocating non-evidence based quitting methods

• News can’t deliver same reach as a sustained radio or TV campaign

Our challenge is to present our information in

an engaging way that delivers our message, and suits the needs and agenda of the media

Challenges

•Engaging with ex smokers can add value to PR efforts•Army of potential ambassadors going through our NHS Stop Smoking Service•Quitters say publicity motivates them to keep going and friends and family to try•Users of social media can provide valuable word of mouth for your service

Champions for quitting

• Journalists love putting a human face on a story

• Highlighting real local people improves chances of any story about smoking being used– Spending money on nicer

things– Feeling better– Happier families

• Novel angles - Chihuahua mum, Maggie the budgie, New Zealand, teeth

Real stories

• Power of highlighting diseases normally hidden from view

• Engaging with real “victims of tobacco” can bring home the power of tobacco related diseases

• Not an easy voice to bring forth • How – links with clinical networks,

GPs, local charity groups, responses to campaign and increasingly social media

A spotlight on hidden harms

Power of statistics• Statistics position your story as new

and important and impact on area• Can national statistics be localised

to add relevance?• RCP Passive Smoking and

Children report – 13,000 North East children need GP or hospital treatment

• Every Breath campaign – highlighted impact of smoking related COPD in North East

• PR package around DH Tumour ad for World Cancer Day 4 Feb

• Statistics – cancer deaths and new cases of cancer from smoking using NHS figures and CRUK estimates (1 in 5 new cancers and over ¼ cancer deaths caused by smoking)

• Expert spokespeople and case studies

Case study - Tumour

Stoptober 2012• How to bring alive a national

campaign locally on a budget

• Three phase plan:– Roving photocall – PR involving case

studies– “Keep going” message at

end of October • 65 articles worth £270,000

in PR value

• Building a case for tackling our biggest killer and highlighting successes in tackling it

• One in five deaths of adults aged over 35 - how many in your area?

• Useful tools to calculate impact of smoking – NICE Tobacco Return on Investment Model – Smoking related disease– Cost to NHS and workplaces– Est. deaths from smoking

• Involve voices of quitters and young people in policy measures such as smoking in cars and standardised packs

.

Moving upstream

Arguments can be played out in news media:

•Programme has highlighted illegal tobacco as an important issue •PR goals – raise awareness of getting kids hooked and generate tip offs •Tobacco industry seized on issue to fight plain packaging - portraying a shrinking market as out of control •Messages about “harmful poisons in illegal tobacco” can give smokers false comfort•E cigarettes – voice of vapers on regulation following MHRA guidance•Freedom to Choose

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Battlegrounds

• North East has seen largest falls in smoking in England and higher than average support for many tobacco control policies (YouGov)

• Impossible to determine exact impact of PR amid wider mass media – but clearly contributing to climate of smoking less normal

• Developing a PR plan with hooks for national health days – COPD Day, Lung Cancer Awareness month

• Plan to engage real people and access local statistics is crucial

Challenges

• Harm reduction – do we need to reframe messages to be more specific about quitting tobacco?

• How do we keep motivating media consumers amidst decline of traditional media – is social media only part of the solution?

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Summary