Study on the effectiveness of newly developed tobacco warning labels in Taiwan

This study examines the effectiveness of the twelve proposed new tobacco warning labels in Taiwan from the perspective of communication strategies. New proposed labels use various types of message strategies to target heterogeneous groups of smokers. Moreover, excessive use of fear-inducing images may lead to the occurrence of a defensive mechanism of smokers; therefore, the fear-inducing approach is accompanied with scientific data to achieve better persuasive effects. In addition to fear-inducing images, new cigarette warning labels also use affective appeals, social appeals, and cessation-support appeals to achieve great effectiveness with respect to effecting changes in smokers' intentions and behavior. To evaluate the visibility and persuasiveness of new warning labels, the study adopts an eye-tracking technique to analyze smokers' reading mode of tobacco warning labels, their fixation distribution and fixation time. Sixty-two smokers were recruited for the experiment. An advertisement for subject recruitment was posted on the largest Bulletin Board system in Taiwan. To ensure eligibility, all subjects were screened for smoking history and age. This study also incorporated focus group discussions (46 subjects), expert panel discussions (16 subjects), and questionnaire research (540 subjects). The results indicated that adult males are more influenced by altruism appeals, while female smokers are more likely to accept social appeals and pay more attention to appearance-related graphic imagery. Teen smokers tend to notice emotionally-charged warning messages and cessation-support appeals. Light smokers, and smokers who intended to quit tend to get easily influenced by warning images and messages. Communication implications are also discussed.