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." started 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. 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. The radio
won a prestigious advertising industry Mercury Award.
