Advertising Case Study

truth
Company Background
Launched in February 2000 and celebrating its ten-year anniversary in 2010, truth is the largest national youth smoking prevention campaign and the only national campaign not directed by the tobacco industry. truth exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction and the health effects and social consequences of smoking, allowing teens to make informed choices about tobacco use. truths objective is to change social norms and reduce youth smoking. A growing body of research has proven the efficacy of the truth campaign in changing teens attitudes and behaviors toward tobacco use. A study published in the May 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) finds that truth was directly responsible for keeping 450,000 teens from starting to smoke during the campaigns first four years, from 2000 to 2004. A second paper in the same publication found that the campaign not only paid for itself in its first two years, but also saved between $1.9 and $5.4 billion in medical care costs to society. Additionally, truth has won more than a dozen awards for its public relations efficacy. truth has collected 115 Hatch Awards, 20 Clio Awards, 12 Webby Awards, 2 Emmy Awards and five Effie Awards including one Grand Effie, a prestigious honor that is rarely awarded to a non-profit.

Facebook Executive Summary

Client:

Objective: Create awareness of the truth campaigns life-saving message by exposing the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction and the health effects and social consequences of smoking among its target 12- to 17-year-old demographic Solution: Run a one-day campaign across its target reach block, directing users to interactive content on the foundations landing and homepages Key Lessons: Facebook enabled an anti-smoking campaign to reach its target demographic of 12- to 17-year-olds thanks to Facebooks user base and ad targeting The fact that friends can easily recommend content to other friends on Facebook can confer trust and legitimacy to a campaign

We were hopeful that Facebook would confer legitimacy and trust through peerto-peer action, and the results prove that. Facebook is one of the only places that we felt could deliver that kind of connection.
Nicole Dorrler, Senior Director of Marketing, The American Legacy Foundation

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Objective
The American Legacy Foundation wanted to bring its truth campaign to the social networking space in order to target its key demographic of 12- to 17-year-olds. In July 2010, the organization decided to run a type of media buy on Facebooks homepage called a reach block, which guaranteed that the foundation would reach 100 percent of its target audience over a 24-hour period. The primary aims of the campaign were to spread information and awareness of the truth campaign. Additionally, the foundation sought to increase the number of people who connected to its Facebook Page the free public profile that enables organizations to share their services and programs with Facebook users on an ongoing basis. The Page invites users to interact with videos, games and lifestyle polls related to the campaign and, thereby, encourages engagement and interaction with the brand. Facebook allows for us to set in motion what I call the ping-pong effect, says Nicole Dorrler, Senior Director of Marketing at the foundation. We take the content, drop it into the environment, and allow the kids to bat it around as a peer-to-peer passalong. The foundation also wanted to increase the percentage of its target demographic that had clicked to Like its Facebook Page. Prior to our reach block, the majority of our user connections were outside of our demographic and that was a real concern, says Nicole. The foundation used Facebooks anonymized and aggregated targeting to direct its ad to a teenage audience.

Approach
The ads ran for a single day on July 12 and featured a variety of content designed to appeal to a sophisticated teenage audience. Among the ads created to foster engagement, a Premium Poll Ad with video asked teens to vote on their favorite action sport BMX, Skateboarding or Motorcross and view a video about the truth campaigns road tour. A separate Premium Video Comment Ad encouraged Facebook users to view the truths Shards O Glass video with an anti-tobacco message and enabled viewers to post their reactions to it. We were looking at engagement as the pinnacle of success, rather than click-through rates, says Nicole, because we know that when teens gravitate toward the Facebook environment, they stay there to interact versus clicking-through to another experience. Nicole explains, So we didnt try to pull users into our content it was more about providing information and allowing teens to make a decision on the subject without feeling pressured or hectored.

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Results
The truth campaigns Facebook Page had over 6,000 user connections when the Ads ran; two weeks later, it had over 32,000, which was a 5-fold increase. The Page received over 1 billion impressions following the ad campaign. The rate of engagement was 0.46 percent. 99 percent of the people who connected to the truth campaigns Facebook Page after the reach block are in the truth campaigns target demographic of 12- to 17-year-olds.

We were hopeful that Facebook would confer legitimacy and trust through peer-to-peer action, and the results prove that, says Nicole. Facebook is one of the only places that we felt could deliver that kind of connection. The success of the foundations reach block also proves the Facebook platforms continuing ability to reach a teenage demographic. Facebook is so important to that audience from a connection-validation point of view creating an identity and connecting and sharing with others, says Nicole.

Future
truth plans to continue to work closely with Facebook on future initiatives, creating what Nicole calls a two-way aggregated approach, where the social environment feeds into the truth campaigns homepage as a hub. We have videos on our site and a Like button that allows teens to determine whether to promote the video. Nicole continues, The two are so synergistic that theyre blurring the lines between the location and the conversation. Facebook is doing a great job of bringing platforms together. Its not enough to push content out and complacently think that youre done its a much more dynamic relationship.