Background and Context:
From 1st December 2013 the Australian Commonwealth Government introduced a staged 12.5% increase in tobacco excise over the four years to 2016. Evidence shows that the increase in excise in 2010 (25% increase) resulted in an 11% fall in tobacco consumption. With these prices increases to tobacco, it is estimated that 210,000 Australians will be prompted to quit smoking, 100,000 Australians will avoid premature death and 40,000 fewer kids aged 12 to 17 years will be deterred from taking up smoking.
Aim:
To develop a media campaign highlighting the increase in tobacco excise to encourage smokers that ‘now’ has never been a better time to quit.
Strategy/Tactics:
With limited budget, the focus for the media campaign was on radio, online and ATM machines that were geotargeted to areas with high smoking prevalence and high population levels of the target audience. The target audience is significantly more likely than the average to be heavy radio consumers, and online platforms and ATM machines allowed strong contextual relevance for the messages. The creative for ATM machines included the visual of a $20 note coming through machine’s slot with a written key message underneath. Twenty dollars was the amount a packet of cigarettes was going to be with the introduction of the first tax.
Programme/Policy Process:
The campaign was reinforced by proactive public relations activities and supported by the policy program within Quit Victoria.
Outcomes/What was learned:
The choice of media enabled high reach and frequency in a contextually relevant environment for a reasonably small budget. The radio activity reached 72% of the target audience, equating to 1,595,000 people. The online activity achieved 4,046,918 impressions, 21,768 clicks and a click-through-rate of 0.54%.