Tobacco Free Florida campaign
Published on April 9, 2008 4:04 AM
A Tobacco Free Campaign was organized in Florida. A campaign of approximately 1.5 million young people of ages 11 to 17. The campaign's comprehensive approach includes youth-focused ads, tobacco prevention messages, a comic book "Justice League", and online initiatives such as Smoke-Free Songs, campaign sites on Face book and My Space and a You Tube video contest.
To gain the popularity for the comic book among young people, the campaign has partnered with District of Columbia (DC) Comics, the largest English language publisher of comic books in the world, for the "No Smoke without Fire" custom comic book. DC Comics present the most popular characters battle cigarette smoke-generating machines and empower youth to avoid the dangers of the deadly habit.
In Florida, the comic books will be distributed to middle school students. And not only comic book stores across Florida will offer free copies of "No Smoke without Fire" to youth and parents.
The Tobacco Free Florida campaign has also created profile pages on two largest social networks in the Internet, Face book and My Space. These networking websites, which are twice as likely to be popular among smokers ages 18-24, give users the opportunity to join the Tobacco Free Florida campaign by becoming a "fan" or a "friend".
In only a few weeks the Face book site has accumulated more than 4,000 fans.
Young people from the campaign know that teens like downloading music from internet, that’s why the campaign has created Smoke-Free Songs, which provides free downloadable songs from non-smoking Florida bands including Maida Vale, Sarah Mac Band, The Twelfth Chapter, Jonny Diaz and Paul Clayton.
The campaign has also partnered with You Tube to sponsor the You Care video contest where newcomers share why they don't smoke. The dispute allows users to vote for their favorite submission.
The campaign has also created an advertisement series of drawn baseball cards with players named Billy "Jawbreaker" Smith and "Silent" Evan Jackson for educating youth on the tobacco dangers. The ads contain hard-hitting statistics including that chew users are 50 times more likely to get cancer of the cheek and gums and that smokeless tobacco contains 28 cancer-causing chemicals and three times the nicotine as cigarettes.
The most important message of Tobacco Free Florida Campaign is presented by teens and includes the short- and long-term effects of smoking, the costs of the habit, and that you don't have to smoke to fit in.