DoSomething.org, a global movement of over 5.5 million young people, and truth®, the largest and most successful national youth tobacco prevention campaign, have teamed up with a new emoji compatibility quiz called "Who Has Their Eye on You?". The emoji quiz "matches" users based on income, race, and sexual orientation – the same factors the tobacco industry uses to profile people in low-income, African-American and LGBTQ communities. The quiz is a part of the latest campaign by truth, #StopProfiling, that shines a light on how the tobacco industry deliberately singles out communities that already face adversity and inequality with aggressive marketing tactics. This treatment is not coincidence, it's profiling. The campaign underscores the fact that tobacco use is more than a public health issue, it's a social justice issue.
In efforts to bring awareness to this issue, teens were encouraged to sign up and take a fun, emoji compatibility quiz to find out if they were a "match" with a mystery single, who they later learn is no other than Big Tobacco. After completing the quiz, teens took steps to become "Finishers" and becoming a part of the generation that ends smoking for good -- by acting both nationally and locally.
To evaluate the success of the campaign, DoSomething.org and truth set a goal of 50,000 sign ups and 3,000 shared quizzes based on previous campaign metrics.
DoSomething and truth found a way to successfully engaged with thousands of teens and bring to light how Big Tobacco disproportionately markets to vulnerable populations.
Campaign Page: The "Who Has Their Eye On You?" campaign page taught young people about how they might be targeted by Big Tobacco, and provided them with 4 easy step guidelines on how to participate and take the emoji compatibility quiz.
Social Sharing: Once participants signed up for the campaign and took the emoji compatibility quiz, they were encouraged to share with friends and on social. They could also use the hashtag #STOPPROFILING to send out the message to the tobacco industry that what they're doing is not okay.
Scholarship: As an added incentive to get young people to participate and share on social, participants were entered to win one of two $2,500 scholarships if they proved that they took the quiz. Once they took the quiz and shared it on social media, they then had to take a screenshot of the post and upload it back into the campaign page where they were automatically entered to win.
Celebrities & Press: To get the word out about the campaign, DoSomething.org and truth teamed up with Coco Jones, the 19-year-old star of Disney's Let it Shine to record a PSA to encourage fans to take the quiz and find out who has their eye on them. Coco shared about the campaign across her Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to her 3.4 million cumulative followers to motivate her fans to participate.
Coco's involvement in the campaign was also covered in by TwistMagazine.com, Huffington Post, The Odyssey, and many other outlets.
DoSomething.org and truth successfully partnered to give young people a simple, fun way to tell their peers how Big Tobacco companies target vulnerable populations.
The campaign exceeded all of its goals :
- 114,175 young people signed up for the campaign, exceeding the goal by over 50%
- 15,531 quizzes shared on social
- The campaign reached 302,548,348 impressions
