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1st Case Study: The West Virginia Raze Campaign (teen tobacco prevention)
d&a and its associate The Manahan Group took best practices from the national Truth campaign, and adding various new components, created the Raze campaign that became one of the nation’s most successful teen tobacco prevention campaigns in history. Evaluation results of the initial four years of the campaign include:
- Reduced tobacco use among youth by 32.5 percent (Youth Risk Behavioral Study) that resulted in 11,500 fewer smokers
- Reduced spit tobacco (the less-informed call it smokeless tobacco) by 38 percent
- Big Tobacco doubled its marketing budget from $35 million to $70 million
- Estimated lifetime health care savings: $127 million
In particular, the counter-marketing messages for spit tobacco addressed a deeply, culturally engrained rite of passage of a West Virginia boy to use spit tobacco to become a man. This was not a habit that became an addiction, like many spit tobacco users. This is part of what a boy from West Virginia who idealizes becoming a man in his father’s terms has to give up – and d&a / The Manahan Group (TMG) fueled this transformation, starting with our counter-marketing messages.
Additionally, the Raze campaign’s success received many accolades, including Addy Awards, Telly Awards and a PRSA Bronze Anvil Award. And, the campaign was featured at the 2005 National Conference on Tobacco and Health held in Chicago.
The PR initiative led to more than 280 teen activist events in the first year and more than double that number in future years. Even more importantly, the events led to hundreds of earned media stories that reached millions of West Virginians.
d&a and its associate The Manahan Group worked closely with the state’s largest research firm and West Virginia University to execute research and evaluation efforts. These included advertising recall surveys, focus groups and attitudinal surveys of teens and their parents.
“Your organization has come up with more creative strategy than any other state I have worked in. I was always proud to work alongside Raze,” said Yes Duffy, national Youth Prevention Activist and MTV Road Rules participant.
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