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truth anti-vaping campaign

Also: Safer ≠ Safe · It's Messing With Our Heads · Depression Stick!

Truth Initiative's national youth e-cigarette prevention work under the truth brand, from about 2018: YouTube pre-roll and social spots on vaping's health risks (Safer ≠ Safe, You Torch, Bro? with The Onion, Barfing Puppets), then 'It's Messing With Our Heads' (September 2021 to October 2022), which framed nicotine as a driver of anxiety and depression and created a spoof vape brand, Depression Stick!, launched on Sunday Night Football and a Times Square billboard.

Years
2018–now
Country
United States
Topic
Mental healthTobaccoVaping
Asks people to
Never startStop
Strategy
HumorIndustry denormalization
Channel
InfluencerOutdoorSocial (organic)Social (paid)TVWebsite
Audience
Young adultsYouth
Youth and young adults aged 15-24 (the evaluation sample).

Evidence

Quasi-experimentalPositive

Truth Initiative's own repeated cross-sectional surveys of 15-24-year-olds: in 2018-2019, high ad awareness was associated with more campaign-targeted knowledge and higher perceived harm (Hair 2023, n=8,421). For It's Messing With Our Heads (2021-2022), weeks with higher campaign awareness had 14-18% lower odds of current e-cigarette use than weeks under 65% awareness, a dose-response pattern (Hair 2025). A cost-effectiveness model by the same institute estimated USD 451M in societal savings (Diaz 2026). All evaluations are by the sponsor's research arm.

Sponsor (who paid)

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Executions (individual ads)

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. truth launches fake vape company 'Depression Stick!' to make a point (Truth Initiative press release, 19 Sep 2021) sponsor · 2021
  2. Shorty Awards entry: Barfing Puppets / Safer ≠ Safe (truth) sponsor
  3. Shorty Awards entry: You Torch, Bro? (truth) sponsor
  4. Hair EC et al. Early evidence of the associations between an anti-e-cigarette mass media campaign and e-cigarette knowledge and attitudes. Tob Control 2023;32(2):179-187 evaluation · 2023 · DOI 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-056047 · PMID 34290134
  5. Hair EC et al. Reducing e-cigarette use among youth and young adults: evidence of the truth campaign's impact. Tob Control 2025;34(1):59-64 evaluation · 2025 · DOI 10.1136/tc-2023-057992 · PMID 37553244
  6. Diaz MC et al. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of It's Messing With Our Heads: A Campaign to Prevent Youth E-cigarette Use. Am J Prev Med 2026;70(2):107996 evaluation · 2026 · DOI 10.1016/j.amepre.2025.107996 · PMID 40738211
  7. Pathways to prevent e-cigarette use: Examining the effectiveness of the truth antivaping campaign. Health Psychol 2024 evaluation · 2024 · PMID 38512213

Research notes

Drafted by Claude on 2026-10-28 for #130 from the sources listed; unreviewed (summary and cardSummary included). Kept separate from truth-campaign (the smoking-era record) because the vaping work has its own evaluations. startYear 2018 comes from the first evaluation's survey window (October 2018 onward); the first vaping ad is not dated in a source opened. Creative agency for Depression Stick! reported as Mojo Supermarket in trade press (WARC, Creative Review) but not on a page opened here; not added to credits. Later waves (e.g. 'Breath of Stress Air', named in a WARC Effie title) not checked. topic mental-health added because the 2021-2022 wave is about anxiety and depression. Check the numbers: 14-18% lower odds, n=8,421, USD 451M; the WARC claim of a 31% rise in quit-program sign-ups is unverified and left out.

Record cases/truth-vaping-prevention.json, updated 2026-10-28· Link to this campaign