Spring Break
Campaign does little good
Charles Carls
Issue date: 9/24/08 Section: Opinion
Eating You Alive, a new campaign focused on smoking prevention, has developed a new mechanism similar to the programs taught to grade school children. The organization is printing graphic images of the effects of lifelong smoking on the insides of matchbooks.
The effort was an expensive endeavor: the organization used all $25,000 contributed by an anonymous donor. Thousands - 400,000 to be exact-of these matchbooks have been printed in New York City.
While the WC understands the importance of diminishing tobacco use, we find this campaign a little bizarre. First of all, $25,000 is a lot of money to spend on matchbooks that have such a low circulation. The 400,000 people receiving these matchbooks constitute one tiny drop in a bucket in a miniscule part of the world. That money could have gone to cancer research or organ donation. The effects are not justified by the means.
Furthermore, this sort of public service has been incessantly preached to every American from the time they were in school through adulthood. Substance abuse programs are compulsory to most schools; these images are far from foreign to those who smoke. Showing images of decaying teeth, black lungs and deteriorating throats will not stop them from smoking. If that method worked, those people would not still be smoking.
If anti-smoking campaigners wanted smokers to get the full effect of this advertising, they should have placed the images on lighters rather than matchbooks. We don't know of very many people who actually use matches to light their cigarettes; smokers use lighters.
People who are actually using these matchbooks will be lighting things other than cigarettes, like candles, bonfires or their friend's cat. Only a desperate smoker will resort to the old-school matchbook.
If a campaign wants to prevent smoking, perhaps it should take alternate measures that would be more cost efficient. Spending $25,000 on a handful of matchbooks will not make a huge impact on smokers.
While the cause was noble and the intention of the campaigners was positive, the consequences will not garner much impact.
The effort was an expensive endeavor: the organization used all $25,000 contributed by an anonymous donor. Thousands - 400,000 to be exact-of these matchbooks have been printed in New York City.
While the WC understands the importance of diminishing tobacco use, we find this campaign a little bizarre. First of all, $25,000 is a lot of money to spend on matchbooks that have such a low circulation. The 400,000 people receiving these matchbooks constitute one tiny drop in a bucket in a miniscule part of the world. That money could have gone to cancer research or organ donation. The effects are not justified by the means.
Furthermore, this sort of public service has been incessantly preached to every American from the time they were in school through adulthood. Substance abuse programs are compulsory to most schools; these images are far from foreign to those who smoke. Showing images of decaying teeth, black lungs and deteriorating throats will not stop them from smoking. If that method worked, those people would not still be smoking.
If anti-smoking campaigners wanted smokers to get the full effect of this advertising, they should have placed the images on lighters rather than matchbooks. We don't know of very many people who actually use matches to light their cigarettes; smokers use lighters.
People who are actually using these matchbooks will be lighting things other than cigarettes, like candles, bonfires or their friend's cat. Only a desperate smoker will resort to the old-school matchbook.
If a campaign wants to prevent smoking, perhaps it should take alternate measures that would be more cost efficient. Spending $25,000 on a handful of matchbooks will not make a huge impact on smokers.
While the cause was noble and the intention of the campaigners was positive, the consequences will not garner much impact.
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