[Intl-tobacco] UK: Anti-smoking ads help 1 million quit

[robert weissman]

Anti-smoking ads help 1 million quit

Stephen Brook, advertising correspondent
Wednesday November 3, 2004
The Guardian

=09Anti-smoking ads
New shock tactics have helped quadruple the effectiveness of the
government's anti-smoking campaign

Anti-smoking advertising has become so effective that it is now more
powerful than GPs in persuading smokers to kick their habit, a study has
claimed.

New shock tactics such as posters showing cigarettes dripping fat to
demonstrate the effect of smoking on arteries, have helped quadruple the
effectiveness of the government's anti-smoking campaign, according to
research by the Tobacco Education Campaign Tracking study for February 2004=
.

The study shows advertising campaigns prompted 32% of recent attempts to
kick the habit while GPs were responsible for just 21%.

The study also shows that a two-year campaign run by a coalition of the
NHS, Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation has been far
more effective than previous anti-smoking campaigns run by the
Department of Health.

"By spreading the load, there was less chance that smokers would feel
victimised," said a report on the campaign, which won a gold award at
the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising effectiveness awards this
week.

The anti-tobacco campaign, created by advertising agencies Abbott Mead
Vickers BBDO, Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Euro RSCG London, has already
beaten its targets and persuaded 1 million people to give up smoking,
according to the report.

"We wanted to bring smokers with us rather than turn them against us,"
said Clare Hutchinson of Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO.

One campaign, created by Abbott Mead Vickers for the NHS, showed
children breathing out cigarette smoke to emphasise the dangers of
passive smoking.

Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Cancer Research UK created a campaign to show
that low-tar cigarettes were not less dangerous, by giving sharks and
other deadly animals such as sharks nice names such as Susie and Rosie.

Smoking costs the NHS =A31.5bn each year. It kills 120,000 annually, more
than five times the collective death toll from car crashes, alcohol and
drug abuse accidents, murders, suicides and Aids.