TFLC Highlights

Tobacco Free Lancaster County participated in the 11th Annual Point-of-Sale Tobacco Marketing Photo Contest in November 2022. This contest documents the tobacco industry’s ongoing marketing tactics and promotional strategies. The competition had 10 categories specific to the tobacco industry’s activities at the point of sale, including “Stores Near Schools,” which we won! It is the second year in a row to win this category with advertising by the same retailer.

While it feels great to win, this was a bittersweet victory. Exposing the tobacco industry’s evolving and relentless tactics to recruit youth with targeted marketing and high visibility seems to be a never-ending battle. We are grateful for all the work our coalition members and community members continue to do to educate, promote, and advocate for tobacco-free lifestyles. This win proves that we have more work to do in our community.

You can see all the winners in the link below and learn more about tobacco advertising tactics throughout the country.

2022 Point of Sale Tobacco Marketing Photo Contest Winners!

The 2022 #GASOLNK #GASOLancasterCoNe Campaign proved to be a huge success with 28 participating businesses reaching 21,305 employees and numerous visitors to businesses that serve over 200,000 individuals annually. This year's campaign focused on providing materials during cessation week, November 14-18, with great fanfare on November 17 - the Great American Smokeout.

The positive, supportive theme of Who Do You Know? (the shortened version of Who do you know that could use support quitting tobacco?) created opportunity to have comfortable conversations with anyone in the community about tobacco use and how to support someone in their quit attempts. Each day of cessation week wellness professionals and business leaders were given materials including encouraging emails and resources for supporting family and friends, information about the Nebraska Tobacco Quitline, health benefits of quitting, and motivational flyers. Resources were also available via a digital resource guide, in English and Spanish, which was accessed by 106 different users, indicating that our reach is growing.

New in 2022, TFLC offered registered businesses and organizations a coffee bar, complete with delicious coffee and flavored creamer and a short description of how the tobacco industry uses flavors to entice youth. Participants shared that they loved this new addition to the campaign and that "it got everyone in one spot...and they could have a little convo" as it created a physical space to talk about supporting people in their quit journey and bring awareness. We are hoping to continue offering this in the coming years, as it also likely contributed to our over 50% jump in registered businesses compared to 2021.

We had the opportunity this semester to work with a group of students from the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications Campaigns Capstone class. This class works with clients each semester to produce advertising and public relations plans, including research, campaign strategies, mock creatives, and planned media or public relations activities. At the end of the semester, the students provide a final presentation.

We are excited to share their final presentation with you and highlight some key takeaways they had for us.

Some key insights from their research:

• Two distinct groups of 18-24-year-olds use e-cigarettes.
• Social group: use only in social settings (bars, events, etc.).
• Consistent use: a majority of which reported use due to stress/anxiety, often use within 60 mins of waking up.
• Knowing the adverse effects is not enough motivation to quit. Messages focused on health effects would not be effective.
• Peer use is often the reason youth start using.
• Many youth/young adults who vape believe a much larger number of their peers smoke/vape than what is accurate.

Working with the class on this project sparked several other research questions and advertising avenues to explore. Dr. Ming (Bryan) Wang, the Associate Professor if Advertising and Public Relations, is interested in health communications and proposed a continued partnership for grant opportunities to further research topics surrounding youth/young adult vaping. Dr. Wang has applied for the Great Plains IDeA-CTR Community-Academic Partnership Program Community-Engaged Research Pilot Project grant with us as community partners. This grant research will focus on determining effective messaging for the two groups of young adults and testing messaging on different social media platforms. We intend to develop further research questions surrounding tobacco flavors, the use of technology, and dispelling misinformation/disinformation for future grant applications or research opportunities.

We were honored to be selected for a poster presentation at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health in 2022. We presented on the collaboration with Lincoln Public Schools and other community partners to develop the edgy, eye-catching vaping prevention and cessation messaging for youth and young adults with the bathroom mirror cling campaign. The opportunity to interact with colleagues gave us a chance to get feedback and discuss improvements for future campaigns. This campaign aims to make it easier for youth trying to quit vaping by providing them with resources they can access quickly and easily.

We are so thankful to our partners at LPS and their commitment to the success of this campaign. With the help of data from Truth Initiative, this campaign will continue to expand and improve in 2023.

(Click the image above to view larger)

Mental health is a growing concern for our community. And many people still think of tobacco as a stress reliever or a way to manage mental health symptoms, which can deter them from supporting someone to quit. Business leaders and wellness professionals can struggle to find the right resources to help employees quit tobacco. In partnership with expert panelists, TFLC put together a 30-minute video sharing the relationship between mental health and tobacco use and providing practical tips on creating a supportive employee experience. Click the image to view the webinar on the Tobacco Free Lancaster County website.

Thank you to our panelists: Jeff Soukup, Tobacco Free Nebraska; Sam Dolezal, UBT; Kristin Walstad, CenterPointe; Karen Rehm, Nebraska Safety Council/Workwell

(Click the image to view the webinar)

The Smoke-Free Healthcare Campus toolkit has been developed and is available on the TFLC website! We will continue efforts to recruit facilities to adopt smoke-free campus policies. If you have any partners at healthcare facilities including long-term care, dental, and chiropractic offices please contact us.

(Click the image to view the toolkit)

There were 26 attendees at this fantastic learning opportunity from more than a dozen agencies across Lancaster County. Our gracious hosts at Foodbank of Lincoln provided the space, training, and a book for each participant as a more in-depth resource. Let us know if you would like to borrow a copy! This opportunity led to excellent conversations and learning about different perspectives. We would love to offer an opportunity like this each year. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas!

TFLC had the privilege of participating in numerous community outreach and cultural events this year, including:

• Apartment Association of Nebraska Trade Show
• Asian Community and Cultural Center 30th Anniversary
• Big Red Welcome
• Bryan Mental Health Awareness Week Health Fair
• City of Lincoln-Lancaster County Health and Wellness Fair
• Harvest Moon Festival
• Juneteenth
• Latino Festival
• Lincoln Family Medicine Residency Programs 1st Annual Community Resource Fair
• Party in the Park
• Project Connect
• Hop SCIP Jump and Run
• Star City Pride
• Streets Alive 2022
• Waverly 1st Annual Community Health Fair
• Youth Pride Kickoff

TFLC also completed presentations at:

• The Bridge
• Northeast High School Families in Crisis Class
• Civil Rights Pre-Conference with Metro Omaha Tobacco Action Coalition (MOTAC)
• Lincoln Lutheran Middle School

The mirror cling campaign continues to be a success and expanded to several locations this year, to include:

• All 28 LPS Middle and High Schools
• Waverly Middle and High School
• Lincoln Lutheran Middle and High School
• Norris Middle and High School
• Pius X
• Southeast Community College
  
• All 9 Lincoln City Pools
• All 8 Lincoln City Libraries
• All 6 Lincoln Rec Centers
• Malone Center
• The Bay
• Pinnacle Bank Arena

With a total reach of over 300,000 people, including youth, young adults, families, and parents!

Pinnacle Bank Arena has mirror clings with designs chosen by the TFLC Communications Task Force representing the types of events and audiences attending. Check out the first round of mirror cling designs and two rotating TV ads (2nd and 4th mirror cling design) playing on the 200+ televisions throughout the arena. In October 2022, we also added the ribbon board, which you can check out below!

TFLC had several earned and paid media opportunities this year! The media has the power to change cultural norms, inspire, provide resources for public health efforts, expose tobacco industry tactics, and prioritize messaging to educate people about the dangers of smoking and vaping. Check out the ways TFLC has been in the spotlight this year!

The Communications Task Force and Ebbeka Design Co. worked together to update and revamp the TFLC website to be more accessible and easier to navigate. The updated TFLC website launched August 1 to the public. The TFLC website, Facebook, and LLCHD Twitter posts reached 163,332 this year! That is a 27% increase in reach over last year and traffic to the website grew by 80%!

Collaboration with Truth Initiative for GHOSTVAPE as local keyword to access This Is Quitting text-based cessation resources and receive on-going data for text line use also launched on August 1. A press release was issued on August 4 for GHOSTVAPE launch viewable on TFLC website as well as on the City News page. As of December 31, 2022, 12 people have texted in and 5 were able to get fully enrolled.

Our purpose is to promote health by educating the public about the dangers of tobacco and vapor product use.

Email: info@tobaccofreelancastercounty.org
Website: www.tobaccofreelancastercounty.org
Location: 3131 O Street, Lincoln, NE, USA
Phone: 402-441-8045
Facebook: facebook.com/tflcne

Funding provided by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services/Tobacco Free Nebraska Program as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.