Our creative insight was to make teens understand the risk of each cigarette by focusing on shorter-term impacts and challenging what they believe they know, demonstrating the real cost of tobacco

• Cost to their body: We identified a way to communicate through the lens of something they do care about – their appearance. Creative executions include premature wrinkles and tooth staining, loss.

• Cost to their minds: We made addiction relevant by communicating it through something teens care about – control. Every cigarette can be a bully pulling you away from the things you really want to do.

• What’s in one: A cigarette is more dangerous than it looks; each puff of smoke contains over 7000 chemicals. This was shown through executions depicting metaphorical embodiment with monsters and creatures, including the tagline “if cigarettes looked as dangerous as they are, you’d run like hell”.

We deployed 40+ influencers from properties like MTV, Vine, Comedy Central, ABC Family, SoundCloud, Music Choice and UMG with efforts including original content across paid, owned and earned media.

Content was flexibly scripted around research-validated messaging, each influencer’s unique voice:

• 21-year-old street artist, Anthony Gargasz, created a unique piece of artwork in his studio and installed it on streets of Fairfax, while sharing his journey to becoming non-smoker.

• “The Real Cost Reveals” program featured Zedd, One Republic and Jessie J, weaving performances with their authentic stories on how smoking would have stood in their way.

• WWE Divas showed their softer side – taking quiz on their “spirit animal,” quietly eating cereal - quickly juxtaposed with their viciousness in the ring, showing that things may not look as dangerous as they are.

• YouTube duo, Smosh, rapped an absurd list of 21 things they’d rather do than smoke.

Data from nationally representative longitudinal surveys U.S. youth aged 11 to 16 at baseline who would age into target audience of 12 to 17-year-olds during the campaign. In-person interviews were done November 2013 – March 2014 to gather initial data. Two follow-up interviews (online or in-person) were done July-October 2014 and April-July 2015 to determine the campaign’s effect on specific youth perceptions about risks of smoking.

Survey results indicate youth perceptions of the risks associated with smoking increased average of 11.5%. Five beliefs showed statistically significant change between the initial data collection and second follow-up:

If I smoke, I will…

• lose my teeth – 21.0% increase

• get wrinkles – 35.0% increase

• develop skin problems – 18.9% increase

• be controlled by smoking – 11.2% increase

• inhale poisons – 9.0% increase

These results speak volumes; The Real Cost is helping at-risk youth understand the dangers of smoking.