Market Research on Key Audiences for Smoking Cessation

Background:  Despite advances in prevention and cessation efforts, smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S., with a detrimental impact on the economic and physical health of the nation. As part of ongoing efforts to improve the low national cessation rate, public health organizations have been using social media to facilitate behavior change. As developing creative materials to support smokers in quit attempts can be costly and time-consuming, it is important to find ways to validate these materials with key audiences before production.

Program background:  The NCI Smokefree.gov Initiative (SFGI) is an open-access, multiple-platform, mHealth cessation intervention designed to help individuals quit smoking. The program utilizes numerous social media platforms to provide smokers with access to easy-to-understand information and on-demand support. Different social media platforms are used to reach key audiences of SFGI, and the team aims to find a cohesive look and feel for all of the visual content while creating unique pieces that resonate with high-risk groups like teens or LGBT smokers. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The SFGI has been piloting a strategy for obtaining rapid market insights on new, unified creative assets in a targeted and affordable manner. After developing a visual guide designed to resonate with three core audience groups for smoking cessation resources, (general smokers, women, and teens), the team performed an evaluation using Facebook’s ad platform to validate the design assumptions. In two-week cycles, visual content was developed based on the visual guide for the three audiences. Each new visual was then targeted through the Facebook ad platform to the intended audience as well as to the other core audience groups for comparison. Ads were then evaluated on engagement rate and relevance score for each audience group.  This feedback was used to modify the visual guide for the next cycle. Initial cycles have seen consistent relevance scores for women in the 8-9 (out of 10) range, with engagement rates increasing into the 12-15% range over time. Relevance scores for our general audience have also remained high (7-10), and we have increased engagement with males during the process. Teen creative has had a moderate increase in both scores, but has relevance scores still in the 4-6 range, and the team is still refining the visual guide for this audience. 

Conclusions:  The results from the evaluation phases demonstrate the value of this iterative development and evaluation process which has become essential in enabling the Smokefree team to use data insights to inform the development and revision of creative materials for our intended audiences in a cost-effective manner. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  While there are clear limitations to the types of data that can be gathered by using Facebook’s ad platform for research, it is a valuable tool to add to the market research toolkit. This strategy can be used to validate assumptions and refine ideas when interviewing and focus group testing are not options, but could also be a useful complement to other types of market research, as it gives the ability to gain insights from large groups of targeted users.