Young people facing the dangers of nicotine

This year, the Health Department launched a new communication campaign dedicated to raising awareness among young people aged 13 to 24 about the harmful effects of nicotine-containing products, such as vapes, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches.

Although these products are often perceived as harmless or ‘fun’, they are highly addictive, difficult to quit and are now becoming popular among teenagers. Nicotine consumption has harmful effects on young people's brain development, memory, attention span, sleep and cardiovascular health. The growing popularity of these products masks a worrying reality.

Young people at the heart of prevention

It is in this context that the Department of Health has launched a new generation communication campaign with a participatory approach: ‘peer-to-peer’.

This concept aims to reinforce the impact of the message by focusing on authenticity and proximity to young people: ‘speaking the truth’ on the right channels, with an authentic and non-judgmental tone.

Young people thus become ambassadors for this campaign and actors in their own awareness-raising.

Awareness in action

In the first phase of the campaign, awareness workshops were organised in collaboration with 4motion and several youth centres, giving young people the opportunity to define the key messages and create the campaign's video materials themselves.

The workshops were moderated by a facilitator and Luxembourg influencer Micas Carvalho. Visual materials, which were also used in an initial digital campaign during the summer, were produced to encourage young people to think about what nicotine products are and are not. They often look like sweets or fashion accessories, but they are not.

The campaign content created with young people was disseminated in a second phase, exclusively online, on platforms and in formats tailored to the target audience: mini-videos (real), vox pops and stories.

Street interviews for phase 2 ("What's that?")

Videos from the digital campaign for phase 1