Ad Campaign Spurs 192,000 More Quitline Calls
CDC says the www.smokefree.gov website also received more than 400,000 additional unique visitors because of the "Tips from Former Smokers" national ad campaign.
The "Tips From Former Smokers" national ad campaign attracted 192,000 additional calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW, which sends callers to their state quitlines, and more than 400,000 additional unique visitors to www.smokefree.gov, a website helping people quit smoking, CDC announced June 14.
Call volume to the phone line more than doubled during the 12-week campaign, which cost $54 million to create and implement. It started March 19 and ended June 10.
CDC says the campaign is on track to surpass the goal of generating at least 500,000 quit attempts and 50,000 "successful, long-term quits." If true, it would save about $70 million in annual health care and productivity costs, CDC estimates.
"These initial results suggest that the campaign will help even more people quit than we had hoped, exceeding our already high expectations," said CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH. "More than two-thirds of all smokers want to quit. People who smoke die sooner and live sicker. This campaign is saving lives and saving money."
The campaign was the first time a federal agency had developed and placed ads for a national tobacco education campaign. The powerful ads in the campaign show how diseases related to smoking have changed the lives of former smokers; several of the ads are posted at http://www.youtube.com/user/CDCStreamingHealth/videos.
CDC considers smoking the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. Information about the campaign and links to the ads are available at www.cdc.gov/Quitting/Tips.