National Tobacco Campaign 2011

Over the next few weeks I will be outlining and evaluating the 2011 National Tobacco Campaign.

• Tobacco smoking is the single largest preventable cause of premature death in Australia; accounting for approximately 15,500 deaths per year.
• Smoking is also responsible for more deaths in Australians, under the age of 64, than deaths due to illicit drugs and alcohol combined from all age groups.
• The 2011 National Tobacco Campaign aims to contribute to a reduction in the overall prevalence of daily adult smoking to 10% or less by the year 2018.
• The NTC uses a comprehensive approach, including a variety of media and well crafted messages designed to reach the target audience.
• The campaign features television, radio, print, outdoor and online advertising as well as radio and print advertising for audiences from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
• The 2011 NTC campaign aims to build on previous Australian Government campaigns including "every cigarette is doing you damage", which ran from 1997 to 2004, and "When you smoke you inhale over 4000 chemicals", which ran from 2006 to 2007 and also again in 2010.

Specific goals of the 2011 campaign, including behavioral and communication objectives, include:

• Increase quit attempts amongst current smokers.
• increase and reinforce the benefits of quitting.
• Increase and reinforce the range of health harms and certainty of health damage associated with smoking.
• Increase negative attitudes towards smoking.
• Increase positive attitudes towards quitting
• Increase confidence in being able to successfully quit and to remain a non-smoker
• Increase resilience amongst lapsed quitters to continue with their quit attempts• 
• Generate and reinforce intentions of current smokers to quit now.
• Generate and reinforce intentions of quitters to remain non-smokers.

The main components of the 2011 NTC were:

• Cough: a television commercial showing a man with a smoker’s cough who

develops lung cancer evidenced when he coughs blood into a handkerchief.

• Health Benefits : several ads which highlighted the financial and

health benefits of quitting.

• Luke (Who will you leave behind?) :  a television add showing a man talking about his

father who died of smoking induced cancer and, as a result, had missed out on the birth of

his grandson.

Paul Myers, David Blackmore, 2011, The Social Research Centre. 

Department of Health and Ageing: Evaluation of the 2011 NPAPH Tobacco Social Marketing Campaign Final Report, viewed 9th November 2011.

<http://www.quitnow.gov.au/internet/quitnow/publishing.nsf/Content/C47FE07472F78E1ACA25786000795457/$File/NTC%202011%20Evaluation%20Report%20FINAL.pdf>