“Does smoking do all that?“ Borrowing from Australia to run a mass-media campaign across regions
Author(s)
Local authority funded campaign
Presenter(s)
Andy Lloyd Head of Media and Communications, Fresh, Durham
Scott Crosby Regional Tobacco Policy Manager, Yorkshire and the Humber, Wakefield Council
Abstract
There is a compelling international evidence base that health harms mass media campaigns are one of the most important tobacco control interventions after price and smokefree laws.
Against declining national mass media budgets, Fresh Smoke Free North East with Smokefree Yorkshire and Humber pooled forces to run an integrated stop smoking campaign supported by Cancer Research UK aimed at more than 1.2m smokers and a combined population of nearly 8m people.
We achieved major savings by testing and adapting the graphic 16 Cancers campaign from Cancer Council Western Australia, showing the importance of global co-operation in tobacco control. "16 Cancers" highlights both the better known and lesser known cancers that can be caused by smoking and consequences these can have on a person's life. Testing found smokers wanted to know more about this, and that health harms messages can be incredibly potent.
We enabled local stop smoking services, GPs and pharmacies to maximise their positive support offering throughout the campaign through the Quit16.co.uk website and local materials.
This presentation will explore the implementation of the campaign, engagement with clinicians and GPs, and how we brought alive the campaign with real people's stories and PR. It will also make a strong case for ensuring we stick to the evidence base as national campaigns move towards a more digital and holistic approach.
We will share evaluation, with the first phase achieving over 38,000 unique website visits, engagement
Source of funding: Local authority funded campaign
