May He Lie In Peace? A Social-psychological Analysis of JoeChemo.org. Mark D. Hatz. Coursera: Wesleyan University

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1 Running Head: MAY HE LIE IN PEACE? 1 May He Lie In Peace? A Social-psychological Analysis of JoeChemo.org Mark D. Hatz Coursera: Wesleyan University Author Note This paper was prepared for Social Psychology, taught by Professor Scott Plous

2 MAY HE LIE IN PEACE? 2 The Joe Chemo website features a parody of Joe Camel, the once famous Camel Cigarettes mascot. In his day Joe Camel was always shown as a masculine character (Elliot, 1991) and always with a Camel cigarette. In contrast Joe Chemo is shown as sickly or even in a coffin. But the likeness of the original Joe Camel is obvious. How many Joe Camel other camels do you know? The website features several applications Joe Chemo such as the Test your Tobacco IQ and Your Smoke-o-Scope, you can even send a free E-Card with a picture of Joe Chemo as well as Join the Campaign which is a way to get involved in the anti-smoking effort and you can get Tips on Quitting. I found the most persuasive section on the site to be the Test Your Tobacco IQ under the guise of testing how much you know about tobacco you are given pertinent health information about the hazards associated with smoking. This is persuasive because as you are competing for a high score, as we all are inclined to do; you are reading informative statistics about the dangers of smoking. You might not seek out such information just for the sake of getting the information but here you are given the information in the form of a simple test that you are psychologically hard wired to want to do well on. Compared to more traditional methods of advertising persuasion, the Joe Chemo website has the distinctive advantage of involving you in the content. Other forms of advertising such as magazine, television or billboards have no involvement with the target audience but the Joe

3 MAY HE LIE IN PEACE? 3 Chemo site has the ability to have the user become involved with the content and even alters the content displayed to the user based on input from the user. The other forms of advertisement are static and are easily dismissed. One disadvantage of the Joe Chemo website is that it must first get an audience, in other words you have to go to the website while other forms of advertisement are delivered to you as you read a magazine, watch television or drive down the road. I believe that the website is more persuasive in preventing non-smokers from smoking then it is in getting a smoker to quit. It does so using social influence with statements like Only 1% of U.S. teenagers prefer going out with a smoker rather than a nonsmoker, compared with 60% who prefer to date nonsmokers. or In still another study, male college students preferred to kiss and become sexually involved with nonsmokers. And what young male would not be concerned about smoking when he discovers this informative gem from the website, When shown an erotic film, men who smoke as few as two high-nicotine cigarettes have smaller erections than do other men. These informative statistics supports the non-smokers decision to not smoke and lets them know that they are not alone in their choice and helps repudiate any possible group pressure to conform by smoking since a larger group obviously prefers nonsmokers. The website also uses fear appeal with statements such as Unless you quit smoking, you run a 50% lifetime risk of dying from your habit. The Joe Chemo website had little effect on me as a smoker, partly because of my age (56yrs) and partly because hold habits are hard to break. Many in my group smoke so I do not suffer from being outcast in my social group. My score of 7 out of 8 on the Tobacco IQ test shows that I am sufficiently aware of the reported dangers of smoking. However I am old enough to remember

4 MAY HE LIE IN PEACE? 4 going to a doctor who was smoking a cigarette while talking to me and I have had friends and relatives die of cancer who never smoked a cigarette. As you can tell I suffer from acute confirmation bias. I am hard pressed to come up with any suggestions to make the website more persuasive than it already is. The site uses many tricks of persuasion. The site even uses three different message variables: humor, fear appeal and informative statistics. The humor is apparent in the Joe Chemo character itself. The fear appeal and informative statistics are well done and do not preach to the audience which in my opinion would lessen the overall effectiveness. The website seems targeted at teens and young adults which is fitting since the original Joe Camel advertising campaign by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was designed to lure teenagers as young as 12 (Lochhead, 1998). The Joe Chemo website losses some effectiveness as the character it is based on losses hold in the collective memory. Joe Camel was a popular advertising character from 1988 thru 1997 and was even identifiable by 6 year olds (Fischer, 1991), but that was 16 years ago and many young people today will not remember Joe Camel and the parody and humor will be lost on them. Joe Chemo will have to stand on his own merit as he will no longer be a recognizable parody of Joe Camel because Joe Camel will be forgotten. May He Lie In Peace?

5 MAY HE LIE IN PEACE? 5 References Elliott, Stuart. (1991, December 12). The Media Business: Advertising - Camel's Success and Controversy, The New York Times. Lochhead, C. (1998, January 15). Joe Camel Designed to Lure Teens. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved form Fischer, Paul M., MD, et al, (1191, December 11). Brand Logo Recognition by Children Aged 3 to 6 Years, Journal of the American Medical Association Picture Credits Joe Camel. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2013 from Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising website, Joe Chemo. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2013 from JoeCemo.Org website,