Case Study

Client:

The TRUTH

Capability:

Social Marketing, Integration

Campaign:

The TRUTH

Challenge:

If you think it’s hard to sell death to a living person, you’ve never met big tobacco (looks like the grim reaper wearing a suit, but fatter). It turns out death sells like gangbusters, as long as the tobacco industry keeps it nice and addictive. Of course, the $60 million they spend every year in Utah advertising their product — over $11 billion nationwide — doesn’t hurt either.

So when the Utah Department of Health came to us 10 years ago asking us to help turn the tide, no one could blame us for shaking in our shoes. But our laces are tight, and we’ve spent the last decade evolving The TRUTH brand and chipping away at big tobacco’s seemingly insurmountable lead, creating authentic, cutting-edge, and relevant counter-messages all with just a fraction of their budget.

Solution/Execution:

In order to tackle the behemoth that is the tobacco industry (sadly, their profits are still slightly higher than ours) we’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink at them. Which is good, because otherwise the dishes would never get done. The TRUTH has been a multi-faceted cross-media effort since the beginning, utilizing paid media (on and off-line), PR, events, and promotions to reach the key youth population. By involving and engaging the audience at every level, Crowell has created a legion of spokespersons for The TRUTH. Like a side-car for our motorcycle, but without all the humiliation and bugs in the face.

Of course, we’re not just a one-trick pony, we’re not even a pony. We’ve kept The TRUTH evolving with the times, going online in 2006 with a website full of games, podcasts, pictures, information, and promotions to target youths during their most susceptible teenage years. Recently re-launched as http://www.fighttheugly.com, the site has seen 188,628 visits, 643,512 page views, and one gerbil that got loose and ran across the keyboard, incredibly typing and entering the URL http://www.fighttheugly.com (really?). Yes, really.

Results:

To this day, The TRUTH remains one of the most recognizable brands in Utah, and has made our state only one of two that has shown a linear decrease in smoking in each of the last four years. Impressive? Maybe. But just because we’re winning doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels. Big tobacco is still out there dealing death and making a profit. Besides, we prefer resting on our butts. Even though The TRUTH is regarded as one of the strongest and most effective anti-tobacco campaigns in the nation, we still love sticking it to big tobacco. Oh, and if you’re listening big tobacco, guess what? Youth smoking in Utah has dropped from 13% to 7% in the last 10 years. Put that in your pipe and, um, blow bubbles with it.