How Smoking Children Set the Phones on Fire.
Client: Michigan Department of Community Health
Project: Make parents who smoke aware of the dangers
of secondhand smoke to children and introduce a new, free
telephone Quitline.
Challenge:
With a significantly reduced budget, reaching smokers
with an anti-smoking message and offer of a free phone
counselor would be difficult. They have tried to quit
before. We felt what would make them successful and motivated
this time was a bit of research that told us people would
quit for their children.
Results:
When television and radio commercials featuring young children
confessing that "I smoke in the car". "I smoke
when I nap." promoting the quitline started, calls jumped
from 227 a month to over 1,000 a month. Call volumes to the
Quitline continue to increase as media continues to run the
campaign. New York State Health Department called asking to
run the commercials in that state. Other state's health departments
have expressed interest in running the spots in their states.
One of the radio spots won a prestigious advertising industry
Mercury Award.
