Tobacco

1

• Tobacco Taking on a Killer
• through the Media
• Andy Lloyd
• Media, Communications and Social
  Marketing Manager Fresh
• andy.lloyd_at_freshne.com
• Tel [phone]

2
To cover

• The role of PR
• Limitations and challenges
• Aligning our goals with the medias news agenda
• Case studies
• Summary

3
Mad men

• How the tobacco industry used PR to fuel an
  addiction
• Edward Bernays (1882) founder of modern PR -
  hired by the American Tobacco Company to reverse
  taboo against women smoking in public
• Cigarettes as "torches of freedom" and their
  denial to women in public symbolized male
  oppression
• New York debutantes made a statement for freedom
  by smoking while marching in the 1929 Easter
  parade to create a new social norm
• PR helped create these norms over time it can
  help reverse them too

4
Role of news media

• Provide important health information for the
  general public and create discussions in
  communities
• Act as a trigger to quit attempts during gaps in
  paid for campaigns
• Provide rationale and build support for policy
  measures to reduce smoking
• Bring alive medical information such as new
  scientific studies about harm of tobacco or new
  ways to quit
• Increase reach of campaigns
• Add the voice of credible messengers such as
  doctors and real people for quitting and advocacy
• Signpost local support to quit

5
Challenges

• All PR we generate must compete with thousands of
  events and issues that happen each day
• Fatigue about smoking related stories compared to
  other health areas
• Journalists have preconceptions about what they
  want from a story
• No controls over message, eg a quitter advocating
  non-evidence based quitting methods
• News cant deliver same reach as a sustained
  radio or TV campaign
• Our challenge is to present our information in
  an engaging way that delivers our message, and
  suits the needs and agenda of the media

6
Champions for quitting

• Engaging with ex smokers can add value to PR
  efforts
• Army of potential ambassadors going through our
  NHS Stop Smoking Service
• Quitters say publicity motivates them to keep
  going and friends and family to try
• Users of social media can provide valuable word
  of mouth for your service

7
Real stories

• Journalists love putting a human face on a story
• Highlighting real local people improves chances
  of any story about smoking being used
• Spending money on nicer things
• Feeling better
• Happier families
• Novel angles - Chihuahua mum, Maggie the budgie,
  New Zealand, teeth

8
A spotlight on hidden harms

• Power of highlighting diseases normally hidden
  from view
• Engaging with real victims of tobacco can bring
  home the power of tobacco related diseases
• Not an easy voice to bring forth
• How links with clinical networks, GPs, local
  charity groups, responses to campaign and
  increasingly social media

9
Power of statistics

• Statistics position your story as new and
  important and impact on area
• Can national statistics be localised to add
  relevance?
• RCP Passive Smoking and Children report 13,000
  North East children need GP or hospital treatment
• Every Breath campaign highlighted impact of
  smoking related COPD in North East

10
Case study - Tumour

• PR package around DH Tumour ad for World Cancer
  Day 4 Feb
• Statistics cancer deaths and new cases of
  cancer from smoking using NHS figures and CRUK
  estimates (1 in 5 new cancers and over ¼ cancer
  deaths caused by smoking)
• Expert spokespeople and case studies

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Stoptober 2012

• How to bring alive a national campaign locally on
  a budget
• Three phase plan
• Roving photocall
• PR involving case studies
• Keep going message at end of October
• 65 articles worth 270,000 in PR value

13
Moving upstream

• Building a case for tackling our biggest killer
  and highlighting successes in tackling it
• One in five deaths of adults aged over 35 - how
  many in your area?
• Useful tools to calculate impact of smoking
  NICE Tobacco Return on Investment Model
• Smoking related disease
• Cost to NHS and workplaces
• Est. deaths from smoking
• Involve voices of quitters and young people in
  policy measures such as smoking in cars and
  standardised packs
• .

14
Battlegrounds

• Arguments can be played out in news media
• Programme has highlighted illegal tobacco as an
  important issue
• PR goals raise awareness of getting kids hooked
  and generate tip offs
• Tobacco industry seized on issue to fight plain
  packaging - portraying a shrinking market as out
  of control
• Messages about harmful poisons in illegal
  tobacco can give smokers false comfort
• E cigarettes voice of vapers on regulation
  following MHRA guidance
• Freedom to Choose
• .

15
Summary

• North East has seen largest falls in smoking in
  England and higher than average support for many
  tobacco control policies (YouGov)
• Impossible to determine exact impact of PR amid
  wider mass media but clearly contributing to
  climate of smoking less normal
• Developing a PR plan with hooks for national
  health days COPD Day, Lung Cancer Awareness
  month
• Plan to engage real people and access local
  statistics is crucial
• Challenges
• Harm reduction do we need to reframe messages
  to be more specific about quitting tobacco?
• How do we keep motivating media consumers amidst
  decline of traditional media is social media
  only part of the solution?
• .