Washington State Department of Health - No Stank You 2.0

Challenge

Ninety percent of adult smokers start as teenagers. Keep kids from saying “yes,” and we’ll save lives. The problem is, young teens are all about brands. Our challenge: Get the world’s most image-conscious target teens to embrace “no” as a hot brand.

Solution

TV spots introduced the “No Stank You” brand. The television campaign illustrated the negative consequences of using tobacco in a language teens could understand, and media negotiations gleaned a 1:1 match, doubling our presence on TV and radio. Each spot ended with an offer to get a free tee shirt.

At NoStankYou.com, kids found a full line of free “No Stank You” fashion tees. These were more than wearable No Stank You billboards.

After joining No Stank You, kids earned points toward free tees by submitting their own shirt designs, rating and commenting on designs, submitting photos of them wearing No Stank You tees and recruiting their friends by posting No Stank You banners on their social networks which allowed the No Stank You brand to spread virally.

Results

In the first seven months of the campaign, the site received over 392,000 visits from kids in Washington state, 46% of them being referred through social networks. Plus, kids are spending over seven minutes per visit on the site, soaking up loads of anti-tobacco messaging. We also received over 19,000 user-submitted shirt designs and mailed out over 20,000 shirts. Unaided recall of No Stank You is at 74%. And it’s helped reduce smoking among Washington’s eighth-graders by 60%.