News Release
1999-11
January 19, 1999
Health Minister convenes panel of experts to develop aggressive non-smoking media campaign
OTTAWA - Health Minister Allan Rock today met with a panel of North American public health and marketing professionals and urged their support in helping to develop a new national public education campaign to reduce smoking in Canada.
In his remarks to the "Experts Roundtable on the Denormalization of Tobacco and the Tobacco Industry", Mr. Rock noted that smoking is often portrayed as a normal and even glamorous habit in mass media and movies. "These images often make smoking seem more normal and acceptable than it really ought to be," he said. "The truth is that cigarettes are addictive and are the leading cause of preventable illness, disability and premature death in Canada."
Among the participants at a news conference today were Gar Mahood (left), President of the Non-Smokers Rights Association, and Greg Connolly, Director at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. (19 Jan 1999)
Experts from the United States are joining their Canadian counterparts to share what they have learned about the marketing strategies employed by tobacco companies and how their advertising and promotional tactics affect young people. The Roundtable will then consider how Canada could most effectively develop an aggressive public education campaign. These "denormalization" campaigns, which adopt a harder-hitting approach that counter-balances the appealing images commonly found in tobacco ads and event promotions, have proven effective in varying degrees in those states in which they have been used.
Commenting on the American experience with denormalization advertising, Mr. Rock noted that Health Canada has focus-tested a number of the ads developed in the United States. "We are sufficiently encouraged by what people have told us that we are going to continue examining this approach, although we know that what works in one country may not always hold the same appeal in another," the Minister said.
The Minister announced that Health Canada will test market some of the more popular ads in selected cities to determine how Canadians respond to them. "Health Canada will use the findings of this panel and the results of the test marketing to develop made-in-Canada ads appropriate for Canadian society," Mr. Rock said.
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