Healthy Discussions: Matt Geib and Rage Against the Haze

About a year and a half ago, I came upon a very creative and interactive anti-smoking campaign aimed at youth called Rage Against the Haze. It was headed up by the smart folks over at Brains on Fire – a leading word of mouth marketing/identity development agency. After I read a little more and discovered how awesome a campaign this was for youth, I did what any other person who loves giving credit where credit is due – I wrote an email to Brains on Fire. In the email I let them know how much I enjoyed reading up on Rage Against the Haze and gave them kudos.

A short time later I received an email back from Spike Jones (who does alot of the blogging) letting me know that a creatively brilliant guy, Matt Geib, was the lead on that campaign.

Matt was the Cause Crusader at Brains on Fire, a national identity company that specializes in turning companies into movements.  He was intimately involved in Rage Against the Haze – South Carolina’s youth led anti-tobacco use movement.  Through his leadership and involvement, RAGE has been recognized for its accomplishments in the creative, strategic and effectiveness realms.  In 2007, RAGE received a WOMMIE award from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) alongside Coke and Yahoo! as a best practice in word of mouth effectiveness and, more importantly, sustainability.  Also, South Carolina has enjoyed one of the largest drops in teen smoking rates with the RAGE program (19.1%), despite it having one of the smallest budgets in the country for youth tobacco prevention.  That’s with no mass media, and no tax increase on cigarettes.

Since then, Matt and I connected and have exchanged messages mainly through Twitter. Although he is no longer with Brains on Fire, I had to interview Matt and get his thoughts on a few things – preserving the genius of the campaign and hopefully giving you all ideas for other youth focused public health initiatives.

P+S: How did you/the team come up with the idea for Rage Against the Haze? What was your role?

MG: My role in creating RAGE was nonexistent (since it was created before I came aboard the movement). Here’s a “run down” in how Rage Against the Haze came about. In 2002 South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) noticed the problem, 36% of high schoolers were smokers and more than 11,000 more were becoming addict each year. SCDHEC received funding to change things by providing tobacco use prevention activities throughout South Carolina. SCDHEC came to Brains on Fire, a Naming and Identity firm in Greenville (the company I used to work for), to develop these prevention based activities.

So Brains on Fire gathered some teens and adults in a room to come up with the name for the Movement. The teens shut down because the adults were trying to take the reins. Finally Geno, from Brains on Fire, noticed this happening. He gathered all the adults and kicked them out. He brought in pizza and locked the doors… Then the magic happened. The teens started naming themselves. They came up with Rage Against the Haze. They selected “Haze” to represent the efforts to get them addicted. And “RAGE” to represent how they felt about it. Next they created a mission.

The Rage Against the Haze Mission: To empower teens with self-confidence and knowledge so they might become the influencers of their generation, spreading the anti-tobacco use message, peer to peer, throughout South Carolina, much like a virus would spread.

My role once I came on board was to be a community manager. I set up RAGE events/training, contacted teens and went out public speaking in schools.

P+S: How effective was this campaign among the target audience?

MG: In 2001 the state of South Carolina had 36% of high schoolers smoking. Since the creation of RAGE, the rate of teens smoking has come down from 36% to 19% in South Carolina. Since its beginning, RAGE has grown to over 6,000 teens (last counted in 2008) that were involved with the movement. This Movement was so successful due to the fact that the teens owned it. With youth in control, the movement would maintain a very personal, very grassroots identity. The messaging would remain between peers, and help them learn the truth about the dangers of tobacco use.

P+S: Coming from a traditional marketing/branding agency perspective, how important are these social marketing campaigns and how do you see them evolving in the future?

MG: I see this type of marketing campaign as essential and here’s why: If a brand or company decides to let their customers take ownership of the product they will see a huge return. Think about it like this; If someone is passionate about your product or brand they will share it with all their friends or at least tell them about the experience they had. And if these loyal customers are doing this for free because they feel ownership, well, that’s free marketing.

P+S: In your experience – what do you think were the elements of the campaign that made it successful?

MG: This movement was successful was because it gave teens a voice, it gave them power and it let them have a soap box to stand on. Teens don’t want to be told what to do or not to do by adults, however, if one of their peers tells them truth about tobacco they will be more likely to listen and change their behavior. Think about it, if someone you don’t know tells you about a movie and that is it bad… you might not believe them since you don’t have a history with them. But if one of your close friends tells you not to see that movie… you won’t waste your money.

P+S: Smoking is still a public health problem here in the US and abroad, what do you think public health professionals should keep in mind when wanting to design creative, interactive and engaging anti-smoking campaigns for youth?

MG: Just that, ENGAGE TEENS. If you want to create something authentic and give power to the teens to spread the truth, you have to be willing to let go of the reins. You’ll be very surprised what teens can do when you let them have control of a movement.

Here’s some video footage of the campaign:

Thanks so much Matt for sharing some insight on the effectiveness of the campaign and for making it happen!

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Tagged as: prevention, smoking, youth