Anti-Smoking Campaigns

When I was looking through charity campaigns that relied on fear appeals, I found that the majority of them combined fear and guilt, which makes it hard to assess the impact of the fear itself, which is why the "Would You Care More" WWF campaign was such a good example.

I found that a lot of anti-smoking campaigns focussed directly on fear though, often using imagery to scare smokers, such as in the examples below.

But the one campaign that stood out as fitting the description from page 165 of Age of Propaganda in terms of it doing the 4 things that make a successful fear appeal was this one from the NHS in 2007.

The quote from the book is the below;

"In sum, a fear appeal is most effective when (1) it scares the hell out of people, (2) it offers a specific recommendation for overcoming the fear-arousing threat, (3) the recommended action is perceived as effective for reducing the threat, and (4) the message recipient believes that he or she can perform the recommended action."

The appeal clearly scared people, with the campaign receiving 774 complaints to the advertising standards agency, with the Sky News reporting;

"The ASA said the posters breached its rules on causing 'fear and distress' and children."

Whilst it offers the admittedly loose recommendation of getting "unhooked" from the addiction to smoking, that action would definitely be an effective way to quit smoking, and the action of calling the phone number or visiting the website is very achievable.

The BBC reported that;

"The Department of Health said the campaign had been 'highly effective'."

and

"The Department of Health said an anti-smoking helpline and website had been contacted more than 820,000 times during the Get Unhooked campaign."

Harvard Referencing

BBC. (2007). Hooked smoking ads 'broke rules'. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6658335.stm. Last accessed 29th January 2015.

Sky News. (2007). 'Too Scary' Anti-Smoking Poster Banned. Available: http://news.sky.com/story/513615/too-scary-anti-smoking-poster-banned. Last accessed 29th Jan 2015.