Top Tips from No Smoking Day Prize Winners

In 2010 one of the most successful No Smoking Day (NSD) campaigns was run by NHS Barking and Dagenham. Their refreshing and energetic approach helped to generate real buzz and proven results.


They achieved this in a number of ways including using the whole week in the build up to the day and four different locations throughout their Borough. They contacted local leisure centres to organise NSD themed exercise classes, and to offer a scheme whereby people signing up to quit received one month’s free membership. They also helped trained occupational nurses to hold drop-in ‘are you fit to quit’ sessions from the council’s transport & cleaning depots. This helped raise awareness about quitting & encourage access amongst routine & manual workers.

All of these activities were widely publicised using internal communications and promotional materials in all council buildings in the lead up. They also placed NSD materials at all the local Pharmacies, GP’s and health centres.


Young People
One of their main focuses for the campaign was young people. To do this they ran two messages. ‘Save your skin’ was used for young women to help them realise the effect smoking would have on their appearance. For young men the message was ‘what’s your game plan’ highlighting the impact of smoking on performance on and off the pitch.

Nine local secondary schools facilitated stalls which were staffed by students and assisted by the schools health advisors. The NHS marketing team supplied promotional resources including banners, posters, t-shirts & business cards promoting NHS Barking & Dagenham youth health website & the local stop smoking service. April Age Progression software was used in three of the schools to help demonstrate the aging effects of smoking and was particularly well received by staff and students alike.

An intensive advertising campaign was integral to the success of this campaign. The team issued press releases both before and after NSD week, using the templates on the NSD website. A real success was having these picked up by several local media, and also in getting a 2 page spread in the local newspaper.

5 top tips for running a successful campaign.
• Plan well in advance
• Promote local services as free
• Track website hits to help determine which advertising is most effective.
• Schools are very enthusiastic – get in there early!
• Create opportunities to link in with more partners.

Here Comes the Quitting Season

It’s official – more people try to quit smoking in January and March than in any other months of the year.

First up are the New Year quitters – keen to make the most of their New Year’s resolutions and kick the habit. Then comes the ‘No Smoking Day effect’, with the high profile media coverage supported by hundreds of stop smoking events being held all over the UK. Add together the quit attempts for January and March, and we should see around 15% of smokers – over 1.5million people – making a ‘serious’ attempt to stop smoking.

Research by Professor Robert West et al, published in the BMJ in 2010, looked at the cost-effectiveness of No Smoking Day as a method of encouraging smokers to quit. The research used data collected since 2006 from the ‘Smoking Toolkit Study’ – a monthly survey of smoking behaviour in England. It shows clear ‘peaks’ in quit attempts each New Year, and again each March as No Smoking Day hits the headlines as it has done every March since 1984. The next No Smoking Day falls on Wednesday 9th March 2011.