This brief formed part of a wider behavioural change program around Tobacco Control in the UK. 24% of UK adults who currently smoke are being helped on the journey towards quitting.A key part of this help is the provision of support services aimed at making quit attempts more successful (than cold turkey). These services included nicotine replacement, group therapy, and one-to-one coaching. The client brief was to create a campaign that talked to those trying to quit, extended a hand of help, and explained clearly what action could be taken to improve chances of success.

We needed to demonstrate empathy with the smoker, we needed to acknowledge how difficult (physically and psychologically) quitting is, and we needed to generate a high number of responses. Our solution was to create a simple but versatile visual metaphor for the smoker’s predicament and the help available.The Getting off Cigarettes campaign showed smokers across the country being helped down from giant cigarettes by a variety of devices and techniques.The creative solution was successful because it was highly impactful, easy to integrate, and clear in the response that it was asking of smokers.

The campaign was launched on 26th December (to capture the New Year quitters) and by 9th March (11 weeks later) it had generated circa 550,000 responses across a variety of response platforms including telephone, interactive television, website and SMS.The TV component of the campaign specifically generated a volume of telephone and SMS responses that was 19% ahead of target.