Primary Sources

Primary Sources: "Reverse Psychology

Does antismoking advertising work? Not if it’s funded by tobacco companies, argues a new study that examines three such ad campaigns. The authors found that, on average, each additional youth-targeted prevention ad that a young person saw was associated with a 3 percent stronger intention to smoke at some point in the future. Exposure to prevention ads targeted at parents, meanwhile—like the Philip Morris campaign urging parents to “Talk. They’ll Listen.”—made older teens less likely to perceive smoking as harmful, more likely to approve of smoking, and more likely to plan to smoke in the future. In these ads, the authors note, “no reason beyond simply being a teenager is offered” to explain why kids shouldn’t smoke, which dovetails with Philip Morris’s stated aim of delaying smoking, not preventing it."