Shapeshifter Press Kit

Tobacco Stops With Me (a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust) is a public health intervention that provides efficient, emotional and highly recognizable tobacco prevention messages for Oklahomans to rally around.

Tobacco companies spend an estimated $150 million each year marketing their deadly products in Oklahoma and use a variety of half-truths and tricks to mislead consumers. These dishonest, manipulative actions result in over half a million new smokers and thousands of Oklahoma deaths yearly. Big Tobacco will do whatever it takes to addict more customers and make a profit, and no one is off limits. To educate Oklahomans about these harsh realities and create advocates against the tobacco industry, a statewide campaign, titled “Shapeshifter” was created.

This campaign gives a unique and jarring perspective on the many lies and tricks the tobacco industry uses to hook Oklahomans into a lifetime of addiction. By utilizing illustrative yet blunt storytelling, campaign materials share the importance of these grave issues. Messages creatively illustrate Big Tobacco as a shapeshifting character who spins the same lies, tactics, strategies and words that the industry uses to addict real customers everyday: teens, Black Americans, low-income communities, women and more.

To announce the Shapeshifter campaign launch, press kits were distributed to over 15 media stations in urban and rural Oklahoma cities. These kits brought attention to the issue of Big Tobacco manipulation, provided recipients with resources to run a story about the issue and/or campaign, and spread campaign messages. Press kit materials featured highly designed and easily digestible educational one-sheeters, a variety of campaign materials and resources, and attention-grabbing gag props that carried Shapeshifter themes. Each kit, designed to look like a briefcase, could be opened to find fake money which featured tobacco-themed designs and important statistics surrounding campaign messages. Each kit featured 150 “one million” dollar bills to represent the amount of money the tobacco industry spends on marketing in Oklahoma each year. The kits successfully brought attention to the launch of the campaign and the damning issues caused by the tobacco industry.