Cats and dogs are twice as likely to get cancer if their owner smokes because of exposure to second- and thirdhand smoke – both of which are toxic to pets. truth® is empowering young people to become the generation that ends smoking – to "Finish It" for good. In order to give pets (and their owners) a voice in the movement to finish smoking, DoSomething.org, the largest organization for young people and social change and truth, the nation's longest running and most successful youth smoking prevention campaign teamed up on a campaign called Four-Legged Finishers.
Four-Legged Finishers encouraged young people to enlist their furry friends to remind people that secondhand smoke is ruff on pets. Young people participated in the campaign by signing up at DoSomething.org/finishers to learn about the effect of smoking on pets' health and how to take action. Participants were then asked to share a photo on social media of their pet with a witty caption about how secondhand smoke affects pets' health. Participants uploaded their captioned pet photo to the campaign page for the chance to win a scholarship as well as for the chance to be selected to be part of a national meme contest.
To evaluate the success of the campaign, DoSomething.org and truth set a goal of 50,000 sign ups and 3,000 captioned pet photos.
In order to reach the goal of 50,000 sign ups and 3,000 captioned pet photos, DoSomething.org and truth created a campaign page with fun, relevant content, encouraged social sharing, ran a meme contest, and enlisted the help of popular celebrities and social media influencers.
Campaign page: The Four-Legged Finishers campaign page taught young people about the effects of secondhand smoke on pets' health and gave them easy instructions on how to participate. The campaign page gave young people guidelines on what to post. For example, captions should be funny, clever, and informative to educate others not shame or embarass smokers. Participants were also able to see example photos and captions for inspiration.
Social sharing: After a participant signed up for the campaign, they were encouraged to share their photo and caption on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #4LeggedFinishers to educate their followers about the effect of secondhand smoke on pets' health.
Meme contest: As an added incentive for uploading a photo to the campaign page, DoSomething.org and truth selected the top twelve photos to be a part of a national meme contest. Participants were able to vote for their favorite meme and the winning meme was turned into a sticker and sent to campaign participants.
Celebrities and social media influencers: To get the word out about the campaign, DoSomething.org and truth teamed up with Katherine McNamara, the star of Freeform's Shadowhuters and her dog Sophie to record a public service announcement to encourage young people to sign up for the campaign. Katherine shared the campaign across her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to her 1.3 million cumulative followers to encourage fans to participate.
Katherine and Sophie's involvement in the campaign was covered by E! Online, The Huffington Post, OKWeekly.com, Just Jared, Teen.com, TwistMagazine.com, and other popular outlets.
DoSomething.org and truth also enlisted popular cat social media influencers to create and share photos across social media with captions around how secondhand smoke affects pets health. Nala the Cat, Venus the Two-Face Cat, and Oskar the Blind cat all shared across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to a total of 7.64 million pet-loving followers.
DoSomething.org and truth successfully partnered to give young people a simple, fun way to tell their peers how secondhand smoke negatively impacts pets' health.
The campaign exceeded all of its goals:
-63,976 young people signed up for the campaign
-10,319 captioned pet photos were submitted to the campaign page
-736 individual tweets and 956 unique Instagram posts used the hashtag #4LeggedFinishers
-The campaign garnered over 205 million impressions
