Adapting Existing Ads for Best Practice Tobacco Control Media Campaigns

Background: Tobacco control mass media campaigns are a proven and effective way to resuce tobacco prevalence and prevent uptake. While lead times and costs for new campaigns can seem daunting, a cost-effecient strategy makes use of existing research and adapts materials shown to be effective elsewhere. 

Program background: To test the adaptability of ads proven effective in at least one country for use in diverse contexts, World Lung Foundation pre-tested five proven ads across 10 countries as unique as China, Russia, India, Egypt and Mexico. 

Evaluation Methods and Results: In mixed qualitative and quantitiative methodology, the PSAs were found to be highly effective across varied countries and contexts. Some of the best performing ads are now being successfully adapted, aired and evaluated in more than a dozen countries. Among these ads are "Sponge" from New South Wales, Australia and "Cigarettes are Eating You Alive", from New York, New York.

Conclusions: Effective ads from one jurisdiction can and should be recycled and reused in others. Adapting existing mass media materials is both cost-effective and likely to ensure that best practice PSAs are used. 

Implications for research and/or practice: Because effective messages work similarly across diverse settings and populations, jurisdictions can save time, money, and other resources using existing, best-practice, well-tested mass media materials rather than creating new ones. Strong materials, shown to have tested well in evaluations, should be shared among countries, states and cities.