The Effect of Cigarette Content Marketing on Students’ Smoking Behavior and Decisions: A PLS-SEM Approach

Objective: This research aims to analyze the influence of cigarette content marketing on student behavior, and on cigarette purchasing decisions, as well as the influence of behavior on cigarette purchasing decisions. Methods: This research is quantitative, using a sample of 500 smoking students from twelve universities in the city of Medan, Indonesia, who were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data collection was carried out by distributing questionnaires that had been tested for convergent validity with an Outer Loading value?> 0.7 and an AVE value?> 0.5, and for discriminant validity with an HTMT value < 0.9. The data was analyzed using a multivariate analysis technique which combines factor analysis and regression analysis. Results: The research results show that the t-statistical value for the behavioral variable (BHV) is 4.128 (> 1.98) and the p-value is 0.000 (< 0.05), which means that the BHV variable has a significant effect on the cigarette purchasing decision variable (PD). The t-statistical value for the content marketing (CM) variable is 27.57 (> 1.98) and the p-value is 0.000 (< 0.05), which means that the CM variable has a significant effect on the BHV variable. The t-statistical value for the CM variable is 18,542 (> 1.98) and the p-value is 0.000 (< 0.05), which means that the CM variable has a significant effect on the PD variable. 93.2% of respondents admitted that they had seen cigarette marketing content on social media, many of them (43%) believed that smoking was detrimental to their health, but the most influential factor was their perception regarding the activity of smoking. Conclusion: Cigarette marketing content has been proven to influence students’ behavior towards cigarettes, as well as directly influencing their decision to purchase cigarettes. Students’ behavior towards cigarettes also influences their decisions in purchasing cigarettes.