Can Corrective Ad Statements Based on \u3cem\u3eU.S. v. Philip Morris USA Inc.\u3c/em\u3e Affect Consumer Beliefs about Smoking?

To comply with the court\u27s ruling in U.S. v. Philip Morris USA Inc., tobacco companies must fund a large advertising campaign to \u27correct\u27 smoking beliefs about which consumers may have been misled as a result of past deceptive practices of tobacco companies. The authors use an ad copy experiment to examine (1) the effects of different versions of corrective ad statements that plaintiff intervenors submitted to the court on multi-item belief measures and (2) the impact of the ad versions and beliefs on general attitudes toward smoking across current adult smokers and nonsmokers. The tested ad versions include a copy-only control condition, a copy-with-graphic-visual condition, and a version with a potentially distracting visual. The results indicate that the corrective statements in advertisements can have a positive effect on antismoking beliefs of focal interest in the case and that the test advertisements affect some beliefs more strongly than others. The authors discuss potential policy implications and limitations and provide suggestions for further research

How Do Antitobacco Campaign Advertising and Smoking Status Affect Beliefs and Intentions? Some Similarities and Differences Between Adults and Adolescents

This article presents two studies that examine similarities and differences with respect to how adults and adolescents process and respond to information in an antitobacco ad campaign. Study 1 examines (1) the effects of antitobacco advertising campaign measures (e.g., campaign advertisement integration, perceived strength of ad-based messages, attitude toward the ad campaign) on four key adult antismoking beliefs and (2) the influence of these campaign evaluations and beliefs on smokers’ intentions to quit smoking. Hierarchical regression results show that antismoking ad campaign reactions explain substantial additional variance in beliefs about tobacco industry deceptiveness, smoking addictiveness, harmfulness of secondhand smoke, and restrictions on smoking at different public venues. The findings also show that the campaign variables as a whole are positively related to intentions to quit smoking, beyond the variance that is explained by demographics. In Study 2, the authors replicate and extend these findings for the campaign using similar measures and procedures for a sample of more than 900 adolescents. They draw comparisons between these adult and adolescent findings and offer some implications for potential corrective advertising for consumers’ beliefs about smoking that may be required of tobacco companies based on U.S. v. Philip Morris USA, Inc