Communication strategy to gain public support for stricter tobacco control law

The client's brief

The number of smokers in Indonesia, especially teen smokers, is so high that it has caused not only public health problems but also an economic burden on society. Unfortunately, tobacco control (TC) has often failed because of the lack of public support, among other things. People have fallen prey to the belief that the tobacco industry provides an enormous economic contribution to the country and plays a part in national identity. Other than that, smokers feel intimidated by TC campaigns as they feel that smoking is a right.

Our strategy

The TC alliance has tried to set right these misconceptions. However, the campaign narratives have always been based solely on data and logical arguments, which are not emotionally compelling. We needed a simple narrative to attach to big tobacco, not smokers. The approach we chose was to take people from indifference to feeling outraged by the invincibility of the tobacco industry, by painting it as a deceptive dictator who builds his wealth by taking advantage of the people. We wanted the general public to realize that the tobacco industry's heroic portrayal as a major contributor to the economy is a scam, and we deliberately wanted smokers to no longer feel scorned by TC's campaigns.

The execution

We launched the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook account @LawanDiktator. The one on Twitter gained significant attention. The tweets earned 45.0K impressions over the 30-day period of our first launch of the campaign, and seven out of 12 content pieces had more than 10k impressions.