Entry Category
Program Entry – Overall Social Marketing
Name of Intervention/ Program
Is Your Vape Worth It?
Background and Situation Analysis
Young adults generally know that vaping carries health risks, yet awareness alone does not necessarily lead to quitting. Many existing tobacco prevention campaigns emphasize long-term disease, statistics, or broad anti-vaping warnings, creating a challenge when communicating with people who already use nicotine products. The campaign sought to identify what could move Rhode Island young adults from general awareness of vaping risks toward seriously considering cessation. The process began with an environmental scan of 16 recent flavored tobacco and nicotine campaigns, followed by three focus groups with 29 participants recruited through a college and community-based organizations. Participants described starting to vape in high school or shortly afterward, using nicotine socially or during periods of stress, and repeatedly attempting to quit. Nearly everyone participating in the formative research had made a quit attempt. Their responses revealed that the barrier was not a lack of awareness. Long-term health consequences often felt distant, statistics could create skepticism, and campaigns that appeared to be trying too hard to appeal to young people were easily dismissed. Participants were more responsive to effects they could recognize in their current lives. They identified the financial burden of repeated purchases, shortness of breath, reduced athletic performance, fatigue, changes in appearance, and the loss of control associated with nicotine addiction as reasons to reconsider vaping. These findings shifted the communication challenge from explaining why vaping is harmful to making the cost of continued use personally relevant. “Is Your Vape Worth It?” was developed from that distinction. Instead of providing another warning, the campaign asked young adults to evaluate what vaping was already costing them.
Priority Audiences(s)
The priority audience was Rhode Island young adults ages 18–25 with a history of vaping, including current daily, occasional, and social users and individuals who had previously attempted to quit. The campaign focused on people who were already familiar with the health risks of vaping but had not yet stopped using nicotine. Because participants represented different stages of readiness to quit, the intervention was designed to create personal consideration first and provide an immediate pathway to support when an individual was ready to act.
Behavioral Objectives
The primary behavioral objective was to increase exploration and use of cessation resources among Rhode Island young adults ages 18–25 who vape. The campaign sought to prompt a specific sequence of behaviors: recognize a personal consequence of vaping, reconsider whether continued use is worth that cost, and visit QuitNowRI.com to explore free quit support. For young adults not yet ready to quit, the campaign aimed to increase contemplation by connecting nicotine use with effects they could identify in their daily lives. This provided an achievable first step for an audience at varying stages of cessation readiness. For individuals already considering a quit attempt, the campaign established one consistent destination for information and assistance. QuitNowRI.com streamlined access to available resources, reducing the need to navigate multiple programs or sources. A secondary objective was to strengthen awareness of QuitNowRI as a resource young adults could recall when their readiness to quit increased. The intended behavioral progression was therefore consideration, resource exploration, and enrollment in cessation support. These objectives aligned with the campaign plan’s goals of promoting cessation resources, directing users to a single access point, establishing QuitNowRI as a top-of-mind resource, and encouraging individuals to explore and enroll in available services.
Description of Strategy/Intervention
The campaign strategy translated formative research into a communication framework centered on personal cost. Participants had already encountered messages about the dangers of vaping. Repeating those warnings was unlikely to provide a new reason to act, so the intervention focused on consequences that could be observed, felt, or measured in the present. Financial cost became one strategic theme. Participants described spending money on vaping products as an ongoing expense and identified saving money as a factor in previous quit attempts. Physical impact became a second theme. Research highlighted shortness of breath, athletic performance, energy, skin, and oral health as effects young adults considered more tangible than distant disease outcomes. The campaign connected both themes to nicotine addiction and industry profit. Participants responded that products, flavors, and marketing practices were designed to encourage continued use, making industry manipulation a relevant source of skepticism and frustration. These insights led to the central campaign question: “Is Your Vape Worth It?” The question placed the audience in the role of decision-maker. Rather than issuing a command to quit, it invited individuals to compare what vaping provided with what continued use was taking from them. An initial creative system was developed around this strategy and returned to the audience for concept testing. The second research phase collected 99 survey responses, including 65 eligible respondents ages 18–25 with a history of vaping, and included two virtual focus groups with 14 participants. Participants reviewed messaging, visuals, logos, captions, and cessation resources. Testing refined how the strategy was expressed. Direct, factual statements generated curiosity, while imagery depicting recognizable physical and emotional experiences resonated more strongly than generic health warnings. The final messaging system translated individual research findings into concise campaign statements. “You shouldn’t be out of breath” made physical impact immediate. “Flavors aren’t accidental” introduced product design. “Designed to keep you buying more” connected addiction with repeated purchasing. “They profit. We pay.” summarized the relationship between personal cost and industry gain. The call to action addressed another research finding: cessation support needed to feel accessible. Participants wanted resources to clearly communicate that help was free and preferred low-friction digital entry points. Every campaign execution therefore directed audiences to QuitNowRI.com for free quit support, turning the campaign’s central question into a clear opportunity for action.
Implementation
“Is Your Vape Worth It?” was implemented as a 12-week statewide paid media campaign targeting Rhode Islanders ages 18–25. The media strategy followed the audience’s reported habits and placed the campaign across social, search, streaming, entertainment, transit, and public environments. Instagram and Snapchat delivered English- and Spanish-language video to young adults on social platforms. Google Search, Display, and YouTube expanded the campaign to reach moments of active browsing and information-seeking. Streaming placements extended video distribution across platforms including Disney+, Hulu, Roku, and Spotify. Non-skippable formats provided sustained exposure to the campaign’s physical and financial narratives. Out-of-home placements introduced the message into locations connected to young adults’ routines. Transit advertising was selected to reach the college-aged population represented heavily in formative research, while gas pump screens provided exposure near potential points of purchase. Video advertising ran on 44 screens across three Rhode Island movie theaters during PG-13 and R-rated films. Print creative appeared on 65 tables in the Providence Place Mall food court, a gathering location with extended visitor dwell time. Creative was adapted to the function of each placement. Video demonstrated how vaping’s physical and financial effects accumulate over time, while static executions reduced those ideas to short statements that could be understood quickly. The visual system used bright, high-impact creative in response to research participants who felt muted public health advertising could not compete with the colorful marketing of vaping products. Participants specifically recommended more captivating visuals without language that felt forced or patronizing. English- and Spanish-language assets maintained the same campaign question and destination, ensuring that repeated exposure across channels reinforced one action: visit QuitNowRI.com to explore free cessation support.
Evaluation Methods and Results
Evaluation was integrated into campaign development and implementation through formative research, pre-production concept testing, and paid media performance monitoring. The first research phase established the strategic problem. Three focus groups with 29 participants demonstrated that many young adults had already attempted to quit and identified the consequences most likely to make them reconsider continued vaping. The second phase tested whether the proposed campaign effectively translated those findings. Survey and focus group participants evaluated specific language, visual approaches, and support resources before final production, allowing weak concepts to be revised before media investment. Paid media analytics then measured campaign reach and audience response during implementation. At the mid-campaign reporting point, measured digital and video channels had generated more than 1.07 million impressions. Instagram delivered 514,205 impressions and 8,239 clicks, achieving a 1.60% click-through rate. Snapchat generated 193,156 impressions and 3,695 clicks with a 1.91% click-through rate. Google generated 45,248 impressions and 1,528 clicks, achieving a 3.38% click-through rate. Together, these three platforms generated 13,462 clicks. Streaming video generated 319,916 impressions and more than 313,000 completed views. A 98% video completion rate demonstrated sustained exposure to the campaign’s longer-form messaging. Spanish-language creative showed particularly strong engagement during the reporting period. Spanish Instagram placements achieved a 2.05% click-through rate compared with 1.42% for English placements, while Spanish Google advertising achieved a 9.19% click-through rate. Because reporting occurred during active implementation, these figures represent interim media outcomes rather than final cessation results. The available results demonstrate that the audience-informed creative generated attention, completed video exposure, and measurable action across the digital channels used to connect young adults with quit support.
Entry Number: 10