Save Your Breath Youth Vaping Prevention
Goal: Encourage New Hampshire youth to see beyond Big Tobacco’s lies and save their breath by saying no to vaping and tobacco use.
Overview: Save Your Breath is a vaping prevention campaign aimed at New Hampshire youth ages 13-18. Despite growing evidence that vaping harms physical and mental health, especially among youth, in the short and long term, vaping rates continue to grow. In New Hampshire, 49.8% of high school-aged youth reported use of a vaping product (an increase from 41.1% in 2017) and 33.8% currently use a vaping product (an increase form 23.8% in 2017); in comparison 5.5% currently smoke cigarettes, according to the 2019 New Hampshire Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
Save Your Breath encourages youth to see behind Big Tobacco’s lies: while vape flavors make vaping sound safe, vaping harms youth’s lungs and mental health and the nicotine in vapes can make it hard to stop. The campaign used digital platforms, including Tik Tok, Snapchat, and Spotify, to reach New Hampshire youth where they are and encourage them to take control of their health by saving their breath from Big Tobacco. JSI also distributed campaign toolkits to community partners designed to support provider communications with youth, and developed an informational video and resources for pediatricians, school health officers and guidance counsellors on the importance of conducting screening and brief intervention and referral to treatment for youth who vape.
Results: Save Your Breath’s first run from June through December 2020 resulted in:
- Across all paid digital platforms, the campaign received over 10.9 million impressions and 18,000+ engagements, including likes, comments, shares, and interactions. This includes over 4.8M impressions on Snapchat and over 2.4M impressions on TikTok.
- More than 18,000 unique visitors and more than 20,000 pageviews on the campaign website.
- Google Adwords ads garnered over 1 million impressions and more than 21,000 clicks. The click through rate (0.99%) was double the industry average (0.46%).
- Over 100 partners downloaded the Save Your Breath Campaign Toolkit and over 600 materials packets were distributed to schools and pediatric offices.
- Messaging that suggested how vaping could interfere with everyday life seemed to garner more engagement than blunt facts about vaping.
Dates: January 2018 – June 2021