The FDA, in an attempt to reach out to minority teenagers, has boosted a new campaign against smoking.
By the use of hip-hop culture.
Smoking and Hip Hop Just Don’t Go Together
This Tuesday, the agency announced that it would be investing $128M in this new campaign, aimed especially at minority teens between the ages of 12 and 17, a demographic not previously targeted especially.
The efforts include TV ads, events and other social media broadcasts in an attempt to capture the style and aesthetic of hip hop culture, making it in a point to highlight that smoking does not fit anywhere.
Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, shares that smoking represents a loss of control, which conflicts with the sense of remaining in control that is deep embedded into the the pillars of hip-hop.
‘Fresh Empire’
The campaign, titled ‘Fresh Empire‘, is attaching several taglines to the effort, among them including ‘CEO of Independence’ and ‘Fresh and In Control’, and their ads expresses messages that incorporate hip hop ideals such as being authentic, powerful, confident, fashionable, creative and trendsetting, specifying that these qualities cannot be associated with tobacco.
Check out one of the ads here.
Smoking Is Still Prevalent in Music
An interesting statistic from genius.com shows that the appearance of the words ‘smoking’ and ‘smoke’ in hip-hop music has had a steady increase in the past few years, which only adds to the FDA’s concerns that the health burdens of tobacco use disproportionately affect minority teens, as said by FDA assistant commissioner for minority health Jonca Bull in a statement.
The campaign will go live to the public during next Tuesday’s Black Entertainment Television (BET) awards, which will be hosted by Snoop Dogg on October 13. There are no major celebrities or public figures attached to the initiative yet, but the FDA announced that it would collaborate with “community influencers” at a local level on this campaign.
Tobacco use has been discouraged in the U.S. for a long time, and it has decreased considerably in more recent years, but cigarette smoking remains a leading preventable cause of death, causing more than 480,000 Americans deaths per year.
