Behind the Scenes: Announcing Fda's New Tobacco Regulation (Poster)

Background:  On May 5, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized the “deeming rule,” extending its regulatory authority to all tobacco products. This major action impacted multiple audiences, from small businesses to consumers, so FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP) communications team developed and implemented a communications plan to educate a range of stakeholders about the rule before its August 8, 2016 effective date. These efforts entailed garnering insights from web and social media engagement and the agency’s call center to create audience-specific tactics including user-focused web enhancements, social media engagement strategy, digital ads campaign, traditional media tour, and email outreach.

Program background: 

As a regulatory agency, FDA’s goals are to decrease initiation, encourage cessation, and reduce the harms of tobacco products.. To achieve this goal, CTP educates key audiences about FDA’s tobacco-related regulatory authorities and activities through timely, accurate communications by providing media relations expertise, content development for a variety of communication platforms, and strategic stakeholder outreach. 

Evaluation Methods and Results: 

Web - CTP updated its website to help users better understand and navigate the content. This included a comprehensive content strategy and user testing.  Ongoing evaluation of the content’s performance helped inform site updates and adjustments. Through promotional efforts, the landing page alone had more than 5,150 page views on August 8, 2016—a 406 percent spike in visits. Overall, CTP’s average website traffic doubled post-deeming (May 5, 2016-Nov 5, 2016) to an average of over 9,000 page views per day.  By February 8, 2016—six months since the effective date—CTP saw dramatic improvements in the website’s use, including a 155 percent increase in unique page views and 13 percent decrease in bounce rate. Social Media - CTP implemented a social media response strategy to answer questions and help correct misperceptions, fielding more than 10,000 comments—an almost 900 percent increase in normal daily traffic. CTP also launched and tracked the performance of two waves of digital ads on Twitter and Google to promote the website, generating 18,848 engagements and 1,185,681 impressions. Traditional Media - CTP leveraged traditional media via a satellite and radio media tour, reaching 23 million people in 170 markets. Media tracking showed over 120 print and online media outlets covered the story. Email Marketing - CTP utilized email marketing to reach e-blast subscribers with information and resources to help clarify questions about the rule.  An email metrics analysis revealed over 3,800 subscribers opened the emails and about one-third of those clicked on at least one link. The emails were also forwarded to about 8,000 additional recipients.

Conclusions:  We believe our communication efforts will make understanding regulations and responsibilities around newly deemed products easier for all stakeholders.  Our lessons learned aim to help session attendees understand effective integrated communications tactics to educate a diverse audience.   

Implications for research and/or practice: 

• Develop strategies to extend messaging beyond just the initial rollout/announcement.
• Use active audience-listening to optimize the overall communications strategy and products in real-time.
• Create user-specific web resources and refocus website organization to help users better understand and navigate content.