Truth is a national
campaign that aims to educate teenangers about tobacco companies and the
dangers of smoking in order to end teen smoking in the United States. Truth has numerous commercials on channels
that use popular music and
images that teens will recognize and connect with. The commercials include
statistics about how teen smoking has decreased in the past few years, and
talks about how much money big tobacco companies make. Their newest
commercials have focused on how smoking kills pets. In early February 2016,
they aired their CATmaggedon commercial.
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| Sample of positive Tweets using #CATmageddon |
The ad uses a lot of visuals and promotes the use of the hashtag
#CATmageddon. Truth is active on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube under the name
truthorange. They
posted their first Tweet about #CATmageddon on February 11, 2016. To analyze
the initial response to the commercial, I examined Tweets from Twitter users
using #CATmageddon from February 11 to February 14. There was a total of 75 Tweets containing the hashtag #CATmageddon, and referencing the Truth commercial. The largest portion of Tweets were neutral and only referenced the commercial or contained a link to it. Positive Tweets were the next portion; these Tweets expressed concern for cats and support for Truth’s message to stop teen smoking. There was only one negative Tweet during these days. Other negative comments have been made later on Twitter and in the comments on Instagram, and they are all along the same line as this Tweet.
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| Example of negative feedback using #CATmageddon |
It is hard to get people, especially teens, to actively
interact with brands and companies. Teens tend to be aware of a
company that is trying too hard to seem 'cool'. However, the push to end teen smoking in the United
States is an important endeavor. Getting the point across to teens, and adults,
is not easy. Getting these teens to spread the message and brand is even harder. Truth
chose a hashtag that went with their message and was easy to remember. They
also promoted the hashtag on commercials, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Using
the correct tools for your audience is important in getting your message to the
right people.
Some areas to improve would be in responding to customers questions on social media. There were some questions about how vape affected pets, and I did not see where anyone responded to these questions. Interacting with the customers on social media can make them feel a stronger connection to the brand. A separate hashtag that is used is #FinishIT. This hashtag is used for a lot of different things by Twitter users, mostly working out. #CATmageddon worked because it was fairly unique to Truth.
A few things that could be added are having customers create videos with their pets that can be used in future commercials. This gets people to actively work with the brand and for the cause. On social media, there were quite a few people who liked the songs in the commercials, so Truth could create playlists with the songs used and promote musicians and their brand on other platforms. The last suggestion is to do a customer spotlight. Pick a day of the week and showcase a customer's story about how they quit smoking. People connect with others, and their stories could inspire teens to "be the generation to finish it."
