Did you know that the tobacco industry is a major contributor to deforestation? Or that puppies can die from eating just two cigarette butts? If you didn’t know these facts, don’t worry, you are not alone.

Most teens are not aware of the many environmental hazards of tobacco use. Ydouthink and its partners, Barber Martin Advertising and Rescue Social Change Group, believe that a break from the traditional anti-tobacco TV ads and a focus on the environmental impact of tobacco could get the attention of previously unreached teens.

Three new ydouthink ads feature environmentally-oriented messages. The spots were developed by Barber Martin Advertising, the local media contractor for the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, who oversees the statewide ydouthink campaign. RSCG provided youth culture and social change consulting for the campaign ranging from wardrobe to scripts, as well as designing the graphics for each commercial.

Rescue SCG’s role as a social change consultant in the ydouthink media campaign is a growing trend. Today, Rescue SCG works alongside local advertising agencies in VA, NV, NM, ME, UT, and NE, providing niche services that cannot be provided by traditional advertising agencies. These services range from social change research to strategic social change planning. For example, in tobacco prevention, Rescue SCG has worked with over 30 different programs and amassed a library of research from over 10,000 teens and 20,000 young adults. This experience and expertise is unmatched by any ad agency in the US. By combining Rescue SCG’s youth social change experience with a local ad agency’s media planning expertise, organizations throughout the country are getting the best of both worlds.

To learn more about Rescue SCG’s niche social change services, click here.

Below are the new commercials for you to view. Also, be sure to check out some press about the new commercials:
Adweek Article 1
Adweek Article 2

[See post to watch Flash video]

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Y St. Data Exposes New Tobacco Products in Richmond Times-Dispatch

On May 7, 2010, the Richmond Times-Dispatch published a story about youth mistaking new tobacco products for candy (full article below). What was the source for the paper’s data? Y St!

Y St. is a youth engagement movement in Virginia developed and managed by Rescue Social Change Group. It utilizes Rescue SCG’s Outcome-Oriented Youth Engagement model (OOYE) to empower youth to fight back against tobacco and other health issues. As a part of its Meltdown Campaign, Y St. members are exposing the tobacco industry’s latest efforts to reach new smokers by surveying thousands of Virginians. Thanks to the OOYE model, hundreds of youth across Virginia are networked and coordinated, quickly and efficiently contributing to this advocacy issue.

And the group’s efforts are paying off. Shortly after the story broke, tobacco control organizations nationwide were contacting the funding organization, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, to learn more about the research and outcomes. Way to go Y St. Next stop, the Attorney General!

Complete Story Courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Many teens mistook smokeless tobacco products for candy

OHN REID BLACKWELL – RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Published: May 7, 2010

Original Article Link

One out of three teenagers younger than 18 mistakenly identified a new type of smokeless tobacco product as candy or gum in a survey conducted by a Virginia tobacco-prevention group.

Conducted last year by student volunteers with the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, the survey asked about 1,400 people, including 728 younger than 18, to identify package images for several types of novel, smokeless tobacco products, along with package images of conventional mints and gums.

About 39 percent of the people younger than 18 identified Camel Orbs as mints or gum.

Camel Orbs are a pelletlike type of oral tobacco that dissolves in the mouth, delivering a dose of nicotine to the user.

Developed by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the nation’s second-largest cigarette maker, Camel Orbs are part a wider trend in the tobacco industry to introduce new smokeless products to the market as cigarette sales have declined and as indoor smoking bans become more common.

The smokeless products have been criticized by health officials and tobacco-control advocates, who say they appear too much like candy and pose a poison risk to young children.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to review dissolvable tobacco products, and U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., last month urged the agency to pull the products from stores pending more study.

The results of the survey indicate that packaging of the products alone may appeal to youth, said Danny Saggese, director of marketing for the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth.

“It poses a significant risk to youth and raises the possibility of them not only using these products, but using them in places where smoking is now prohibited, and potentially becoming nicotine addicts,” he said.

Of the teenagers younger than 18 surveyed, 28 percent said they would try Camel Orbs based on packaging alone.

Camel Orbs are not available in Virginia, said David Howard, a spokesman for Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds. The company is test-marketing the product in Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; and Portland, Ore.

Howard said Camel Orbs are sold behind the shelf along with other tobacco products.

“They are clearly tobacco products,” he said. “Their sale is age-restricted. It is illegal to sell them to minors. The packages carry the same warnings as other smokeless tobacco products.”

Starting late next month, the FDA will require smokeless tobacco products to have warning labels that cover one-third of the front and back of the packages, Howard said.

Christine Hou, a senior at the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School, said she thinks the novel smokeless products are not widely known among teens, “but it is something [tobacco companies] are putting out there, which is scary.”

Hou and her sister Judy, 16, were among the more than 200 students who conducted the surveys among their peers and in public places between last May and December. The survey results are not a random sample of the general population.

Hou said she thinks the products blur the line between candy and tobacco. While teenagers might recognize it as tobacco, “they might think it is less harmful or not 100 percent tobacco,” she said. “More kids might be willing to try it just because they don’t know what it is truly is.”

Another product identified in the survey was Stonewall, a type of smokeless, pellet tobacco sold by Henrico County-based Star Scientific Inc.

About 35 percent of the survey respondents 18 or younger perceived Stonewall to be candy, mints or gum. Twenty-three percent said they would try Stonewall because of the packaging.

Sara Machir, a spokeswoman for Star Scientific, said she could not comment on the survey without reviewing it, but she said the company’s internal research indicates that the median age of consumers of its products is 40 years old.

Star Scientific also has said its products are labeled for use only by adult tobacco users, are stocked only with other tobacco products in stores, and have packaging designed not to look like candy.

A third product in the survey was Camel Snus Mellow, a type of oral, pouch tobacco that Reynolds sells nationwide. Twenty percent said they would try Camel Snus based on the packaging.

The Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth is a state-created, tobaccoand obesity-prevention organization funded with 10 percent of Virginia’s annual payments from the 1998 national tobacco settlement.

Congratulations to the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) for winning a CDC Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) Stimulus Grant. SNHD will expeditiously begin a significant expansion of its tobacco prevention efforts, which encompass all five of the CDC MAPPS strategies, and Rescue Social Change Group is proud to be there every step of the way.

Since 2001, Rescue SCG has provided SNHD with strategically targeted and tailored counter-advertising services to reduce youth, young adult, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) tobacco use. These programs have contributed to the second most significant proportional decline in tobacco use in the country, from 32.6% in 1999 to 13.6% in 2007.*

Last fall, Rescue SCG helped SNHD develop its counter-advertising strategy for this grant opportunity, proposing expansions of the local XPOZ, Urban Fuel, and Crush campaigns. Here’s a little bit about how each of these efforts will grow thanks to this grant.

XPOZ is a teen counter-advertising program that specifically targets the alternative rock subculture. Thanks to the CPPW grant, XPOZ will be able to expand its reach by conducting more events and increasing its media campaign. In addition, more influential bands and social leaders will be recruited and inducted into XPOZ’s smokefree scene, while new cessation opportunities will be offered to teens that need to quit.

Urban Fuel is a young adult counter-advertising program focusing on bar and club promotions and campus-based social events to reach the highest risk young adults. The grant will allow Urban Fuel to host bar and club nights that focus on the service industry community in Las Vegas. In addition, new events on the UNLV campus will ensure that both college and straight-to-work young adults are reached. A direct mail campaign will ensure anti-tobacco messages continuously reach the young adult population and cessation strategies will motivate more young adults to quit.

Crush is a counter-advertising program targeting the LGBT population through bar and club promotions, special events, and LGBT youth strategies. This funding will allow Crush to expand from bars and clubs into all ages venues. A direct mail campaign will increase the number of messages each LGBT person receives, and cessation opportunities will accelerate the social change process.

Besides these tailored counter-advertising strategies, Rescue SCG will also be launching a local youth engagement program to tangibly support the local policy change efforts. Learn more about any of the four Rescue SCG strategies funded by this grant by clicking below.

o      Outcome-Oriented Youth Engagement to support policy change

o      Bar and Club-Based Counter-Advertising to reduce young adult tobacco use

o      Integrated Counter-Advertising to reduce teen tobacco use

o      Targeted Counter-Advertising to reduce LGBT tobacco use

Congrats to all of the other CPPW grant winners. We hope to have a chance to share our experience in youth and young adult tobacco prevention to support your local tobacco and/or obesity prevention efforts.

*Calculations based on CDC YRBS data from 1999 through 2007.

Check out the article that appeared in the Las Vegas Sun written by Kyle Hansen.

Health District gets $14.6 million from stimulus to fight smoking

By Kyle Hansen

Friday, March 19, 2010

The Southern Nevada Health District will receive a $14.6 million grant to fund its Tobacco Control Program, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday.

The grant is one of 44 that will be funded with $372.8 million in federal stimulus money.

Southern Nevada’s portion will go toward continuing and expanding work the health district has done to keep people from smoking and to help smokers quit, officials said.

More than 84 percent of funds will go to community groups and partner agencies the district has been working with, said Dr. Lawrence Sands, the district’s chief health officer.

“One of the strengths of our application was that we have built up these relationships already,” Sands said. “These aren’t relationships that just came together to get this grant.”

Mesquite City Councilwoman Donna Fairchild, who is a member of the board of health, said the funds would go a long way in helping the community.

“Without aggressive efforts to prevent and control chronic diseases … the rise in health care costs of preventable diseases will remain unchecked and an increasing number of Americans will continue to suffer from tobacco- and obesity-related illnesses,” she said. “Prevention and wellness are an important part of cutting costs, improving the heath of Americans, and make best use of our community’s limited resources.”

The cost of treating tobacco-related illnesses in Nevada is $565 million per year, said Maria Azzarelli, the district’s Tobacco Control Program coordinator.

Azzarelli said when compared to the cost of treating illnesses, as well as the $113 million the tobacco industry spends annually on advertising in Nevada, the grant doesn’t look like much, but it will make a difference.

“This amount of money has never been dedicated to smoking cessation before in Southern Nevada,” she said. “With this new grant award we will be able to fight back against the tobacco industry to accomplish so much more over the next two years.”

Many of the groups that will be working with the district have been struggling financially, Azzarelli said.

“A lot of these projects are going through budget cuts and some face elimination,” she said. “This money could not have come at a better time for them.”

The Nevada Cancer Institute is one of those groups, said Rosemary West, the institute’s partnership director.

The institute expects to get funding through the district to begin doing adult smoking cessation workshops. The institute stopped the program when funding dried up, West said.

Another beneficiary of the grant will be Rescue SCG, a research and marketing company that works with organizations for social change.

The company currently has one employee in Las Vegas, but plans on hiring five additional full-time workers and a number of part-time staffers, President Jeff Jordan said.

But the real importance of the grant will be its effect on the community, he said.

“This is about building a lifestyle around being smoke-free,” Jordan said. “Being smoke-free can be sexy, it can be cool, it can be all those things tobacco promises.”

Rescue SCG will soon be starting work on a new culture-based social marketing project with the Utah State Department of Health to prevent youth tobacco use. Based on teen smoking research conducted by Rescue SCG in 2009, youth that identified with the emo/goth subculture were found to be two to four times at greater risk of tobacco use. In order to address this cultural disparity, the state requested proposals for a culture-based social marketing program and awarded the contract to Rescue Social Change Group.

Rescue SCG will be using its proprietary Social Branding® model to break the association between the emo/goth culture and smoking. A Social Brand will use music events, brand ambassadors, street marketing and web to build credibility within the culture and motivate change. The ultimate goal is to concentrate efforts on those youth most at-risk in order to reduce Utah’s low, but stubbornly unchanged teen tobacco use rate of 7.9%.

Stay tuned for more updates as Rescue SCG works with the Utah State Department of Health to select the social brand and launch the intervention.

The San Diego Union Tribune featured an article about Rescue’s resident reality stars Cheyne Whitney & Kevin “KC” Campbell.  Check it out below, or click here for the original.

Cheyne Whitney (standing) and Kevin Campbell, co-workers of Rescue Social Change Group in Mission Hills, inspired each other to get cast on separate TV shows. Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T

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.

We recently got the opportunity to interview one half of the winning team from the huge reality TV show the Amazing Race. Cheyne Whitney sat down with us and answered some questions regarding the fantastic organization he works for RescueSCG, as well as his time on the Amazing Race with his partner and girlfriend Megan.

RTVM: Please tell us about the San Diego– Rescue Social Change Group. How did it get started? What are the goals of the group and the future plans?

Cheyne Whitney: RescueSCG was founded in 2001 by Jeff Jordan as an organization with a mission to positively influence youth and young adults. Rescue launched their positive change movement by hosting top-notch smoke-free nightlife events that created a healthy lifestyle movement among the young adult party scene of Las Vegas. Through research, strategy and marketing services, RescueSCG’s overall mission is to improve the lives of youth and young adults through tobacco, alcohol, obesity, violence and HIV prevention programs, as well as after school promotion and youth advocacy for policy change.

Goals and future plans of the group focus on expanding and refining our unique social marketing, after school service and youth advocacy models in hopes of causing large scale positive change nationally and internationally.

RTVM: How did you get involved in the group? What is your job? What do you forsee for yourself in the future with the group?

Cheyne Whitney: I began working with RescueSCG in the Fall of 2008 as an intern and was hired on full time at the end of my internship period as an Assistant Brand Manager. I was honored to be promoted in August of 2009 to After School Brand Manager and to be given the role of On-Site manager for the Kearny High Complex IMIN after school program. As an After School Brand Manager I focus on developing and implementing engaging enrichment programs for local San Diego high school teens. Looking forward, I hope to refine and expand Rescue’s IMIN reach, as well as conduct after school research across the country.

RTVM: What are you most proud of regarding your involvement with the group?

Cheyne Whitney: I am most proud of being involved with such an amazing positive like-minded group, all of whom are dedicated to improving and influencing the lives of peers and future generations.

RTVM: How would your co-workers describe you and your ethics when it comes to your job and life?

Cheyne Whitney: I would hope that my co-workers would describe me as a natural change ambassador who is easily approachable and consistently helpful in regards to all of Rescue’s campaigns. In life I would think that my colleagues admire me as a dreamer who works to achieve my goals regardless of their grandeur or reality.

Now if you do not mind a few questions about your time on the Amazing Race:

RTVM: First of all, congratulations on your win with Megan on Amazing Race. We were rooting for you guys. Are you still together? Wedding bells in the future at some point?

Cheyne Whitney: Yes we are still together… the rest is confidential! Haha and thank you for the support!

RTVM: How do you think the two of you managed to keep a cool head most of the time when most teams seemed to snap at each other? Did you guys staying calm play a hand in you winning the race?

Cheyne Whitney: Megan and I were focused and dedicated to thinking positively and maintaining composure throughout the whole race before it even began. Watching previous seasons and planning for our adventure, we realized that teams who became frustrated or overworked usually lost ground or their lead and we made it a point to stay focused on the future rather than the pitfalls or troubles of the past. Staying composed and maintaining a positive outlook the whole race played a huge role in our win and the other 6 legs of the race that we won.

RTVM: What was the most exciting thing you did on the race? What was the scariest? What will you remember the most and take with you from the race?

Cheyne Whitney: The most exciting thing I did was drive the F3 race car in Dubai, it was by far the gnarliest thing I have ever done. The scariest was undoubtedly when I scaled face first down the Mandalay Bay hotel in Vegas. I was hundreds of feat above the Las Vegas Strip crawling down the building balancing of winning a million dollars and staying alive.

RTVM: Would you be willing to compete on the Amazing Race again in the future or on another reality show, like Survivor?

Cheyne Whitney: Yes we would love to do the race again, if they have an all-star season it really wouldn’t be “all-stars” without the winningest team in Amazing Race history right? Meghan and I would also entertain the idea of Survivor but aren’t applying or anything. In the Reality world we are focusing most of our free time to positive avenues, organizations and charities while working with producers on a Positive Global awareness campaign and reality show.

Thank you Cheyne for answering our questions and being so open! We are thrilled that you and Megan are still doing so well and wish you many years of happiness.

For more information about Cheyne’s charity work visit the San Diego– Rescue Social Change Group.

For other great The Amazing Race news, please feel free to check out SirLinksALot: Amazing Race. Discuss on our reality TV message boards.

This month, Rescue SCG began work in Oklahoma for a new young adult tobacco prevention initiative funded by the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET). The project utilizes Rescue SCG’s proprietary Functional Analysis for Cultural Interventions research strategy, known as FACI™, to investigate local young adult subcultures and their relationships to smoking. Learn more about FACI™ here.

The Rescue SCG research team for Oklahoma includes Jeff Jordan, Andrew Ermlick, Valerie Windstrom-Stevé, and Veronica Montoya. They will be investigating local subcultures in Tulsa and Oklahoma City to provide strategic recommendations to TSET.

The investigation will recruit young adults directly from local bars and clubs to participate in specially designed focus groups. Using Rescue SCG-designed research techniques such as Identity-Projection and Subculture Associations, the research team will look for patterns in tobacco use. These findings will then be quantitatively verified using Rescue SCG’s Ibase™ Survey, which will be administered to 1,200 young adults at bars and clubs in each city using a random venue-based sampling method.

If these research findings lead to a young adult Social Branding® intervention to prevent young adult tobacco use, Tulsa and Oklahoma City will become the 7^th and 8^th cities to adopt the rapidly growing strategy, currently active in Portland, ME, Albuquerque, NM, Las Cruces, NM, Las Vegas, NM, San Diego, CA, and Reno, NV. To learn more about Social Branding® for young adult tobacco prevention, click here.

Rescue SCG expects to have research findings available in early April 2010. Stay tuned to this blog for more info.

Rescue Founder & President Jeffrey Jordan was featured in a biographical article in Hispanic Business Magazine written by Rob Kuznia.  The article can be read below. Or, click here for the original article on HispanicBusiness.com

It’s Hip to Kill Tobacco: 25-Year-Old Entrepreneur Throws Parties, Makes Money and Slays the Beast

Jan. 5, 2010

Rob Kuznia — HispanicBusiness.com

Nerds have their place in this world, but serving as models of tobacco prevention isn’t one of them.  Or so says 25-year-old Jeff Jordan, who believes this burden is a better fit for the shoulders of the cool kids.  And he should know.

Just seven years out of high school, the Peru native and longtime San Diego resident has built a multi-million-dollar business out of making risky behavior — smoking in particular — positively un-cool.

Jordan’s for-profit business, called Rescue Social Change Group, contracts with state public health departments, school districts, non-profit organizations and foundations around the country to thwart the tobacco industry’s attempts to get its meat-hooks into fresh young customers.

To do this, Jordan believes health advocates need to beat the tobacco industry at its own game: Selling their brand as hip and trendy. This means he must get young people to associate hating tobacco with “edgy,” which can require being, well, truly edgy.

The approach can be controversial, and occasionally produces unintended consequences. Police, for instance, have raided well-attended parties organized by Rescue Social Change Group — parties that were underwritten by state public health agencies. Once, a bathroom-humor-inspired TV commercial produced by the group comparing cigarettes to fecal matter was widely condemned in Las Vegas — and thus praised by radio shock jock Howard Stern.

One thing you won’t see at a Rescue Social Change Group event is any mention of the state public health agency that is picking up the tab. That would be un-cool.

For his part, Jordan first noticed the follies of traditional tobacco-prevention programs while volunteering for one in high school.

“A lot of it was just preaching to the choir,” he told HispanicBusiness.com. “Kids who hated the tobacco industry got together and talked about how they hated the tobacco industry. … I personally felt there was a better way to go.”

Rescue Social Change Group currently has clients in about a dozen states, and also works to eradicate other societal ills, such as binge drinking, obesity and violence.

But the bulk of the business — at least 60 percent — is dedicated to preventing people ages 18-26 from lighting up.

In recent years, Jordan’s nine-year-old company has generated its share of buzz.

For one thing, it’s profitable. In 2008, Rescue Social Change Group, which employs 30 people, brought home $3 million, more than tripling its $810,000 revenues in 2005. (Jordan declined to divulge his salary.) In September, it was named the 13th fastest growing company in San Diego by San Diego Business Journal, and the 21st fastest growing company in the San Diego area by Inc Magazine.

Even more important, public health officials say, the company’s often-controversial approach to combating the tobacco industry works.

“He’s brilliant,” Maria Azzarelli, tobacco control coordinator for the Southern Nevada Health District, told HispanicBusiness.com. “I’ve done this my whole adult life, since graduating college in 1999. Meeting Jeff transformed everything.”

Azzarelli gives Jordan’s company most of the credit for a dramatic plunge in teen smoking in the Las Vegas area. From 1999 to 2007, the proportion of high schoolers in the region who smoke has plummeted from 33 percent to 13.5 percent. It’s the second-biggest drop in the nation.

To be sure, the impressive numbers come at a time when tobacco use among teens is on the decline. Nationwide, from 1999 to 2007, tobacco use among high schoolers dropped in from 35 percent to 20 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But in at least some Rescue Social Change Group locations, the results exceed the norm.

In Virginia, home to cigarette giant Phillip Morris, the state hired Rescue Social Change Group in 2003. A few years later, Virginia was among just five states in the nation to post a decline in smoking among high-schoolers from 2005 to 2007, said Danny Saggese, director of marketing for Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth.

“They are pretty phenomenal,” he said. “They’ve done a lot to motivate us into realizing that it’s extremely important to segment your audience.”

At the root of Jordan’s method is an age-old marketing principle: If you’re trying to reach everyone, you reach no one.

“The kids who are at the center of youth subculture — the mainstream — have very low smoking rates, like 3 or 4 percent,” Saggese said. “As you go away from the center — on one side the skater, rocker, emo, goth kids, and on the other, hip hop culture — the smoking rates go up significantly.”

These are the people that Rescue Social Change Group targets.

The company often reaches them by recruiting the coolest people within each sub-culture. This unusual technique requires the aid of a kind of talent scout, who must observe people interacting and eventually approach the trendsetters.

“These are the people who for a long time have been targeted by the tobacco industry,” Jordan explains. “They are more confident, more talkative. They have larger networks. You look at them, and they are more fashionable, kind of walking around in that bar more, and always seem to have people around them.”

Rescue Social Change Group doesn’t ask them to become anti-tobacco preachers. They don’t even require them to quit smoking. The idea is to get them to buy into the value of kicking the habit. If that happens, others will usually follow.

The approach isn’t impervious to slipups. Sometimes, trying to attract an edgy crowd can produce raucous results. Saggese said the Virginia Department of Public Health became a victim of its own success a couple years ago, when a hip-hop event drew 700 kids — forcing them to turn away 200. There were a few fights, and the agency had to re-group.

To ensure buy-in from other authorities, the public health agency decided to put the program up for certification from an institutional review board. It got the stamp of approval, and re-launched the hip-hop campaign during the first weekend in December. The first party was called “2 Up 2 Down” — slang for how holding two fingers up and down forms a “VA” for “Virginia.”

At the event, DJs played music, and em cees occasionally laced their banter with anti-tobacco messages such as: “We gittin’ down smoke free and fight free.” Or: “Do you. I’ll do me smoke free.” (Translation: Smoke if you must, but none for me.)

Posters and T-shirts blasting the tobacco industry were also on site.

“It has to be said to them in a language and lingo that makes sense to them,” Saggese said. “The message has to talk to them. Not like me talking to them: an old gray-haired guy. It has to be from somebody who is essentially cooler than they are.”

Source: HispanicBusiness.com (c) 2010. All rights reserved.