Strong anti-smoking ads that ridicule smoking or highlight the tobacco industry’s record turn audiences into critical viewers of the smoking in the the movie that follows — without costing studios at the box office. Research finds that showing anti-tobacco spots before movies does not change the audience’s willingness to recommend the films to friends, but it works to neutralize the pro-tobacco influence smoking in the movies has on young audiences.

In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, after reviewing the scientific evidence, concluded "The increased risk for smoking initiation as a result of exposure to smoking in the movies can be reduced by antismoking advertisements..." and reccomended that such ads be run before movies with smoking.

Ads for all movie ratings

Anti-tobacco spots help inoculate audiences, but they are not the whole answer. They treat the toxic exposure, rather than prevent it. The single most effective measure is to reduce adolescent exposure by half — with the R-rating.

What about the other half? Teens see about half as many R-rated movies as PG-13 movies, but R-rated movies have, on average, twice as much smoking. It would take restrictions on content — which we oppose — to clear smoking out of R-rated fare. Instead, anti-tobacco spots will help counter this exposure even after the smoking “R” is implemented.

How will a spot campaign work?

To be effective, anti-tobacco spots cannot be occasional Public Service Announcements shown at theater owners’ discretion. They need to be distributed, by the studios, on the feature film reel itself (or downloaded to theaters from satellite, the digital distribution system now emerging).

Spots also need to be included in the opening “chapter” on future DVDs, on videos and on-demand viewings. The spots should be rotated often enough to prevent audience fatigue and can be matched to the individual film’s demographics, just like the film trailers (and, increasingly, commercials) that theaters show now.

Most important, the spots must be produced by groups experienced at producing effective ads. Campaigns organizations with no track record of making tested, effective spots might prove as problemmatic as the tobacco company "youth smoking prevention" campaigns that tell teens that smoking is “an adult choice” — making it more attractive. The American Legacy Foundation "truth" ads have been demonstrated to be effective, as have many ads produced by the states and available through the US Centers for Disease Control’s Media Campaign Resource Center that the studios could use.

Coming soon to a theater near you?

“Inoculation” spots are such a reasonable idea that theaters in Ohio, Vermont, New York, Ontario (Canada) and Washington, D.C., have already started showing them.

Unfortunately, the industry as whole has not taken up its responsibility. In 2005, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), the MPAA, and other industry groups failed to carry through on a proposal, by more than thirty state Attorneys General, to add anti-tobacco spots to the masters used to print reels for distribution to thousands of screens.

In mid 2006, the Attorneys General — 41 of them this time — took another tack. They asked the studios to include Truth® spots produced by the American legacy Foundation on DVDs depicting tobacco use. The MPAA responded coolly.

But then, in October, The Weinstein Company, an influential New York-based independent producer and distributor, announced that it would start adding Truth® spots to its smoking DVDs, starting with the video debut of Clerks II in January, 2007. Disney followed suit in March 2008, when it added the Truth® spot "singing cowboy" to its Oscar-winning Miramax film No Country for Old Men.