Public Health England sharpens content focus for Stoptober push in bid to be an ‘always on marketer’
Finding new ways to get smokers to kick the habit every September is tricky even for the most prolific marketers, which is why Public Health England is making this year’s Stoptober more content-driven,
This month’s campaign picks up where last year’s ended, dialling up the humour first struck by recruiting a comedians Bill Bailey, Rhod Gilbert, Shappi Khorsandi to promote the cause alongside the returning Al Murray (as The Pub Landlord).
It smacks of an ‘if aint broke, don’t fix it' approach from the government agency though this time there’s a greater focus on making Stoptober participants feel like they’re not alone as they go through the testing period.
Videos, texts and emails from the comedians, who each offer different types of support such as distraction (Bill Bailey), common sense (Murray), tough love (Gilbert) and comfort (Khorsandi) at key times will run from today. Facebook and Twitter alongside the revamped 'Stop Blog' will support the activity, which targets drivers, parents and smokers, particularly focusing on demographics where smoking is most prevalent.
“There’s a paradigm shift that’s happened in the health world with Facebook and other digital platforms becoming health intervention services in their own right,” said Sheila Mitchell, marketing director for Public Health England. “We’re just facilitating a conversation for people helping each other, offering hints and tips on how you can quit. The technology in itself can be an intervention in new thinking I suppose for public health.”
With more of the campaign’s media weighted in digital, Public Health England is working with both Facebook and Twitter to refine its targeting. All this digital content will back the campaign's larger TV and PR work as it looks to reach as many people as possible over the next month. And that target is around 750,000, which is inline with previous efforts, and the amount it needs to pull it past the one million sign ups mark.
This activity dovetails with a 'Smoking in Vehicles' push launching later this month (14 September), which will primarily focus on outdoor media. The media strategy is to hit drivers and parents with messages about new legislation, which comes into place next month (1 October) and makes it illegal to smoke in vehicles carrying passengers under 18 years-old.
“Not only are we encouraging smokers to sign up to the free Stoptober support available, but we’re also communicating important information about the law which will ban smoking in cars with under 18s present. We are running both campaigns simultaneously but across different channels to target key audiences, and encouraging everyone to quit with Stoptober,” added Mitchell.
Both campaigns are spikes in a marketing calendar that Mitchell hopes will eventually have a more pronounced all-year round balance. It is how the marketer sees the organisation creating an ‘always on approach’ to marketing its initiatives in a way that keeps things fresh.
[Keeping our marketing fresh] on smoking cessation is a big challenge because all you really want to say to people all the time is please quit smoking because it will kill you,” said Mitchell. “We’re looking at ways we can create steady drip of content that reaches people but also gets them to come and seek our content out.”