Everyone knows that cigarettes are harmful to your health. Many people even associate cigarette butts with pollution on our streets. What most people DON’T know is that big tobacco is also a major plastic polluter. Every cigarette butt you see contains 15,000 microplastic fibers! Microplastics are now found in our food, water, and air causing great harm to the environment and to our health. New studies show that microplastics have been found in the blood, lungs, breast milk, and even the placenta of living humans.
In partnership with the California Department of Public Health and its California Tobacco Control Program, Univision Los Angeles set out on a mission to inform Latino audiences of the shocking, microplastics pollution facts that big tobacco wants to keep hidden.
It is imperative that the Latino community becomes aware of the dangers big tobacco poses when it comes to microplastic pollution.
Leveraging Univision’s brand recognition and its ability to engage with target audience, we launched an interactive and informative social campaign aimed at Latinos in the state of California. The campaign was designed to provide a learning yet interactive experience for our audience with the goal of arming them with the knowledge about microplastics in cigarettes and big tobacco’s efforts to keep people ignorant of this danger.
To engage our audience with our messaging we employed the following tactics:
- Trusted Univision brand ambassadors – In Los Angeles, the largest of our target markets, content featured our Chief Meteorologist, Yara Lasanta who has established trust with our audience by providing up-to-date weather and environmental information. In addition, our reach was extended to our radio audience through the integration of our on-air personality, Maria Elena Nava who has built a 30+ years relationship with her listeners.
- Established Univision Contigo platform – The Univision brand has earned a high-level of trust among Latinos. We leveraged that trust by integrating CDPH and its tobacco control program with our Univision Contigo initiative. Univision Contigo (With You) is our philanthropic and community pillar brand that highlights causes, inspires solutions, and showcases how brands give back to the community. Through the Contigo integration we were able to borrow Univision’s brand equity for CDPH and its tobacco control program.
- The Power of Local – To reach audiences outside of the Los Angeles DMA, we utilized all California Univision’s Local social platforms and renowned local meteorologist and personalities to reach and target Latino audiences, whenever and wherever they are.
- Strategic Creative Elements
- Video 1 – Message: There are 15,000 microplastic fibers in each cigarette butt.
- Video 2 – Message: Microplastics are everywhere.
- Video 3 – Message: How microplastics affect your body.
- :30 Contigo vignette with Yara Lasanta – How microplastics in cigarette butts affect the environment.
- 5 frame social stories with interactive poll and quiz stickers
The message about the dangers of microplastics in cigarettes was delivered through the social accounts of all Univision’s local California TV and Radio stations.
- Campaign garnered over 1.3M social impressions within a two-week period, delivering 104% of our benchmark.
- Campaign connected with Latinos with over 134,641 engagements including likes, comments, and shares.
- Campaign video creatives delivered over 152K+ video views across Univision local social accounts.
- Campaign drove traffic to the UNDO.org/es website generating 4,800+ link clicks, indicating that the campaign resonated with its intended audience and motivated them to learn more about the effects of Big Tobacco.
These results demonstrated the effectiveness of the campaign in raising awareness and driving engagement and traffic to CTCP and provided valuable insights for future partnership campaigns.
