Sarah Sunderland Country Brand Leader, Pfizer Ltd, Tadworth
Abstract
The use of social media plays a large and increasing role in people’s lives, in fact there are 5.5 million searches annually about “smoking” and “smoking cessation” on YouTube and 50% of smokers in the UK aged between 35 and 55 years use YouTube once a week (1).
Pfizer engaged in two social media activities to raise awareness online that smokers are up to four times more likely to quit with support from stop smoking services than trying to quit unaided (2).
The first activity was to test the concept using Pfizer’s existing television adverts delivered on YouTube for 11 weeks. The second step was to collaborate with YouTube film makers to produce five videos to raise awareness that a healthcare professional can help people stop smoking and deliver them via YouTube in a 10 week period. We used a “Thunderclap” to raise awareness of the campaign.
The initiative was endorsed by QUIT and Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and generated a charitable donation from Pfizer to each of these charities.
In this session we will share the social media disease awareness campaign together with the results from this innovative way to engage smokers to seek HCP support when stop smoking.
References
1. Figures provided by Google, December 2014
2. National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training, Briefing 208 http://www.ncsct.co.uk/usr/pub/Briefing%208.pdf Date accessed March 2
Source of funding: Pfizer Ltd
Declaration of interest: Sarah Sunderland and Samantha Howland are employees of Pfizer Limited
