Truth is about spreading info to at-risk kids who are open to or are experimenting with smoking, so they can make informed decisions about tobacco. “Infect truth” helps those kids, primarily ages 12-17, take what they’ve learned and pass it on in rebellious ways.

More often than not these young people tend to have a feeling of immortality and that can be a problem with a health message. They all know smoking might kill you, they just don’t think it will happen to them.

Since knowledge is contagious, we wanted to spread the word and “infect” kids with facts about Big Tobacco. We used TV, print, radio, cinema, websites and social media profiles on sites like myspace.com and xanga.com to get the word out. There are over 70 different pieces of creative ranging from TV spots to the hairy-mail widget. Kids are encouraged to pass these around and “infect” their friends. As of January Œ07, we’ve had 12,000 friend requests on our online profiles and over 100,000 infections have been sent.

Although we don’t have specific response numbers on the print, we offered users several similar tools online. And, as of February 14, 2007 over 140,000 of these knowledge based infections had been passed along.

Additionally, a study in 2002 found that there were 300,000 fewer teen smokers as a direct result of the truth campaign. This translates to 100,000 lives saved. And to date, the campaign continues to deliver on the goal of decreased smoking rates among teens. Teen smoking has declined 39%, reaching its lowest point in nearly 30 years.