In Oklahoma, teens are vaping at an alarming rate. 21.8% of Oklahoma high schoolers report vaping in the last 30 days, while middle and high school students also report using a variety of other tobacco products. These far exceed national averages, indicating a need for drastic change in the state of Oklahoma.
Tobacco Stops With Me (TSWM), a public health intervention campaign in Oklahoma, created a health communication campaign to bring awareness to the realities of youth tobacco and nicotine use, educating adults about this important issue. This campaign, titled Talk About Tobacco (TAT), encourages and equips parents and educators to have a conversation with the kids in their lives about tobacco use. Research shows that these conversations lead to more informed kids who are less likely to initiate tobacco/nicotine use and more likely to quit. The campaign creates an indirect but effective channel to curbing youth tobacco use by reaching adults about the need for a simple conversation. The campaign set out to build awareness via engagement driven tactics that include video completions, and use that awareness to equip audiences with free resources available to download on the campaign’s website. Objectives set before campaign launch were 7.5 million campaign video completions leading to 5,000 campaign resource downloads in the first year.
Only 40% of parents with children who vape are aware that their child vapes. When a parent is aware of their child’s addiction and able to talk with them about it, there are more avenues and greater chances to intervene and protect the child from the dangers of tobacco. Because of this, the TAT campaign seeks to educate parents about the realities of youth tobacco use. In order to achieve this goal, we built awareness and educated parents through video and resource download tactics. State and nationwide data helped drive creative which featured attention grabbing visuals, testimonials, product and industry information, plus education through an interactive online experience. These avenues drew Oklahoma parents in, catching their attention and creating awareness towards this important issue. These assets also created opportunities for conversation and engagement between parents/educators and youth.
TSWM utilized state and nationwide Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data to support and inspire the TAT campaign and prepare campaign assets. Additionally, TSWM conducted local in-depth interviews (IDIs) with rural and urban Oklahoma parents of children of varying ages. The IDIs dug into the realities of teen tobacco and nicotine use and revealed common barriers parents experience when having conversations with their kids about tobacco. IDIs revealed that parents often felt that a conversation was unnecessary, or that they were ill-equipped to have a meaningful conversation. IDIs also revealed that parents did not always believe the issue was relevant to their kid, even if they knew the issue was prominent universally. These IDIs provided critical insights that shaped the campaign’s tailored resources, ensuring they effectively addressed parents’ concerns and misconceptions.
The TAT campaign employed a multi-media messaging approach that included media on TV, radio, billboards, print, web, and over 15 digital and social paid and organic tactics. These messages drove Oklahomans to the TAT website where they were met with a variety of tailored resources to help encourage and equip them for a conversation with the kid in their life. All resources were backed with in-depth research and supporting information that made the user journey seamless and allowed for easy adoption of TAT resources. The TAT campaign was executed by a variety of resources to help adults have these conversations. What makes this campaign unique is that is drove users to tailored resources, such as age-specific conversation guides, blogs, videos from local parents, tobacco product one-sheeters, an online interactive learning experience, classroom resources such as worksheets and posters, and more. These resources all provided Oklahoma parents and educators with support and assets to feel comfortable to execute a successful conversation.
The goal of this campaign was to ultimately drive Oklahomans to the Talk About Tobacco campaign to educate and increase awareness, and drive users to free resources that ultimately facilitate a meaningful conversation about tobacco and nicotine prevention in youth. Since launching in the fall of 2024, the campaign has generated over 12 million video completions (a 60% increase on the campaign’s goal) and over 11,500 resource downloads, (an astounding 130% increase on the campaign’s goal). Below are additional results after the first month of the TAT campaign launch:
These efforts are a huge success for this public health campaign because the audience interacted, became educated, and continued engagement with the campaign’s materials, spurring on real change in the lives of Oklahoma’s next generation.
