For decades, the tobacco industry has targeted trendsetting Hipsters with pro-smoking messages. Subtly infiltrating Hipster culture, the industry sponsored their bars, showered them with free samples, and enticed their musicians, artists, and designers to align their identities with a cigarette brand.

To this date, the tobacco control community has stayed away from this influential group. Targeting adults, teens, and college students instead, tobacco prevention and counter advertising messages skipped over this culture of young adults who focus their attention on local musicians and artists, congregating in local watering holes, and going to rock shows to celebrate their culture.

Beginning with a grant from the Public Health Trust, followed by a grant from the Flight Attendance Medical Research Institute, and continuing today thanks to a grant from the California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, the University of California, San Francisco has partnered with Rescue Social Change Group to develop an innovative strategy to reach these trendsetting young adults.

Using Rescue SCG’s proprietary Social Branding® model, the “Commune” program was developed. Commune is a celebration of local art, music, fashion, and business through social events and a rejection of manipulative corporate influences such as the tobacco industry. Through monthly events, direct mail, web, brand ambassadors, and cessation groups, the Commune brand reaches one of the most hard to reach audiences with its anti-tobacco messages.

While Commune is still growing in San Diego, its impact is already being documented. Through a random venue-based sampling method, 1,200 young adults are surveyed each year at local bars and clubs. Tobacco rates amongst the general sample decreased from 55.9% to 53.7% after 10 months of intervention. While a modest decline, it was concentrated within a subset of the population, namely young adults who most identify with the Hipster subculture and were identified to have high social concern using a set of psychographic questions. This subgroup began with a smoking rate of 77.4% that declined to 69.7% after 10 months. As trendsetters and cultural leaders, these young adults are those most likely to adopt behaviors first and spread them to others.

This early success has led Commune to receive the Gold Davey Award for Marketing Campaign Effectiveness for 2009. Congrats to the Commune team including Ashley G. and Jenny K. for their hard work. We look forward to seeing an even bigger impact from the second follow-up, currently being collected.

To learn more about Commune, watch the case study here.