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Quitline gets personal in the fight against smokes

Quitline has teamed up with the Health Promotion Agency (HPA) and GSL Promotus for the latest campaign in the fight against smoking. ‘Meet our advisors’ aims to increase the number of successful quit attempts through the Quitline service, and contribute towards New Zealand’s ‘2025 Smoke-free goal’, which is an important challenge given 15 percent of the population still smokes.

The TVC features three Quitline advisors, Sonya, Jordan and Dave, who share their personal stories of quitting smoking and their experiences helping others to do the same. Also woven into the ads is information about Quitline services.

According to a release, one of the key success factors for those who quit smoking is that they feel comfortable contacting the service, which is why the advisors were given the part.

“The campaign shows how real and approachable the advisors are, that they understand the challenges of quitting smoking in the real world and can offer genuine, realistic advice and support.”

Sonya, Jordan and Dave are joined by their family and friends in the TVCs, highlighting the key theme of “the importance of whanau”. Other themes of the campaign include: “what you can do with the money you save when you don’t smoke” and the self-esteem boost of quitting.

Right now Sonya’s series is on air with four TVC’s that exploring health, support, tailored support and pregnancy. The others will roll out over the next three months with one TVC in Jordan’s series entirely in te reo Maori.

According to Statistics New Zealand, in 2014, 40 per cent of smokers over 15 years were Maori,  25.1 percent were Pacific, 15.2 percent European/other and 8.3 percent Asian.

While most campaigns aim to encourage consumers to buy more and do more, health promotion campaigns, like this one, often do the opposite—meaning a “very different” approach has to be taken according to GSL Promotus managing director Leigh Graham.

She describes the goal of commercial marketing as “clear and simple” while social marketing involves “complex goals” in a “highly political environment”. To navigate these challenges GSL Promotus worked closely with the clients’ teams and experts in the different areas.

“It takes more time than commercial marketing and more patience and a strong understanding of how to effect behaviour change. It is a different mindset and every person in the team has to buy into that. We’ve been working in this environment for a long time now and we love it. In particular, we’ve been working with Smokefree and Quitline since we were founded over 16 years ago, so we have considerable experience in the tobacco control sector.”

This is the first campaign since Quitline was taken over by Homecare Medical in November last year and the marketing responsibility moved to the Health Promotion Agency (HPA ). 

Credits

Client: Health Promotion Agency (HPA)

Service provider:  Homecare Medical
Campaign title: Meet our advisers
HPA senior project lead: Russell Duncan; Daemon Coyle

Homecare Medical communications consultant:  Robyn Bern

Homecare Medical team:  Willie Unuka, Ben Strickland, Mitchell Bidois
Agency: GSL Promotus
Creative director:  Nigel Corbett
Managing director/strategist: Leigh Graham
Account director: Fiona Bailey
Media team: Katrina Richmond, Brianna Mcleod
Production company: Symphony
Director: Craig Henderson

Producer:  Nikki Chapman

DOP:  Crichton Bone

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