Publications and Evaluation Results about the Tips Campaign By Campaign Year

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Cumulative

    • During 2012–2018, CDC’s Tips campaign helped prevent an estimated 129,000 early deaths and helped save an estimated $7.3 billion in smoking-related healthcare costs.
    • The Tips campaign was also associated with healthcare cost savings of $11,400 per lifetime quit, and $5,300 per quality-adjusted life year gained.
    • For every $3,800 spent on the Tips campaign between 2012-2018, we prevented an early death. The 2021 cost-effectiveness study factored in smoking relapse, inflation, and advertising and evaluation costs.
    • Infographic – Impact of CDC’s Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign pdf icon[PDF – 438 KB]

 

  • Association between the Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign and Smoking Cessation Among Adults, United States, 2012–2018
    Published: August 27, 2020
    Summary:  During 2012–2018, CDC’s Tips® campaign was associated with an estimated 1 million sustained quits and 16.4 million quit attempts among U.S. adults.
    • Mass media campaigns, such as the Tips campaign, can increase smoking quit attempts and sustained quits as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing smoking-related diseases and premature deaths in the United States.
    • Continued implementation of evidence-based smoking cessation campaigns, including the Tips campaign, could accelerate progress toward reducing rates of smoking-related diseases and premature deaths.
  • Evidence of the Impact of the Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign: Results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
    Published: October 10, 2019
    Summary: A dose-response relationship between Tips From Former Smokers®  (Tips®) campaign exposure and attempts to quit smoking among U.S. adult participants in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) was reported validating previous campaign findings.
    • Several studies have used multiple methods to demonstrate the campaign’s impact on cessation behavior; while these studies relied on probability-based web samples, this is the first Tips study to use a nationally representative surveillance system, BRFSS. BRFSS is the largest continuously conducted health survey system in the world.
    • This study affirms that the more exposure to Tips that people who smoke receive, the more likely they are to make an attempt to quit smoking cigarettes.
  • Impact of U.S. Antismoking TV Ads on Spanish-Language Quitline Callsexternal icon
    Published:     September 18, 2018
    Summary: Call volume more than doubled during the airing of Spanish-language Tips® TV ads that highlighted the health consequences of smoking and secondhand smoke and promoted 1-855-DÉJELO-YA, a national portal that routes Spanish-speaking callers to Spanish-language services available from their state quitlines.
    • Promoting 1-855-DÉJELO-YA in antismoking Spanish-language ads can increase call volume and help to increase Spanish speakers’ access to evidence-based cessation services, as described in this first national study.
    • The ads highlighting the health consequences of smoking had a higher impact on call volume, suggesting that this messaging strategy may be effective across population groups.

 

  • Impact of the Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign on Population-Level Smoking Cessation, 2012–2015
    Published: May 31, 2018
    Summary: During 2012–2015, the CDC’s Tips® campaign was associated with over half a million sustained quits among U.S. adult smokers, and over 9 million quit attempts.
    • These findings indicate that the Tips campaign’s comprehensive approach to combining evidence-based messages with the promotion of cessation resources, such as 1-800-QUIT-NOW quitline and other resources on the campaign’s website, has been successful in achieving substantial long-term cigarette cessation at the population level over multiple years.
  • Association Between Media Doses of the Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign  and Cessation Behaviors and Intentions to Quit Among Cigarette Smokers, 2012 –2015external icon
    Published: May 12, 2017
    Summary: An assessment of the varied doses of the Tips campaign found that an increase of 1,000 quarterly gross rating points was associated with 14% increased odds of a quit attempt and 12% increased odds of intending to quit in next 30 days.
    • Campaign effects did not differ by subgroups of race/ethnicity, education, or mental health, suggesting the campaign serves multiple groups equally well.
    • In addition, the messaging and effects of the campaign are durable; that is, the Tips campaign continues to have a substantial impact on cessation behaviors among U.S. adult smokers over time.
    • Messages about the negative health consequences of smoking are effective when delivered at media doses consistent with CDC Best Practices, which is an important guideline for campaign implementation.
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2016 Tips Campaign

    • Quitline registrants who reported hearing about the quitline from radio advertisements were more likely to be male, younger, and have more years of education; the registrants who reported hearing about the quitline from TV advertisements were more likely to be Black, non-Hispanic, and have fewer years of education.
    • This study about quitline registrants reinforces the importance of considering the intended audience when selecting the optimal mix of media.

 

    • In 2016, the Tips campaign ran ads designed to motivate smokers with mental health conditions, specifically people living with anxiety or depression, to try to quit smoking. Rebecca, a former smoker from Florida who experienced tobacco-related tooth loss and gum disease and struggled with depression, was featured in these ads on television, radio, print, outdoor, and digital formats.
    • These findings support including ads featuring people living with mental health conditions in national tobacco education media campaigns, such as the Tips
    • The Tips campaign is an important population-level strategy for reaching specific population groups who are experiencing tobacco-related disparities.
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2014 Tips Campaign

    • Findings provide strong evidence that racial and ethnic minority subpopulations, including non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics, scored ads higher in perceived effectiveness regardless of race/ethnicity of the ad participant.
    • Message characteristics (e.g., graphic visuals and emotional content) may play a more important role than race and ethnicity of ad participants.
  • Evaluation of the National Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign: The 2014 Longitudinal Cohort
    Published: March 24, 2016
    Summary: After the launch of the nine-week-long 2014 Tips From Former Smokers® campaign, 1.83 million people who smoke attempted to quit and an estimated 104,000 Americans quit smoking.
    • The Tips campaign continues to have a significant impact on cessation-related behaviors, providing further justification for the continued use of tobacco education campaigns to accelerate progress toward the goal of reducing adult smoking in the United States.
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2013 Tips Campaign

 

    • While digital video advertising was cost-efficient in generating awareness, the smaller size of the digital video viewer audience and the smaller effect of digital advertising exposure compared to television suggests that digital video advertising is best used as a complement to a television campaign and not as a replacement.

 

    • Based on these findings, we estimated that the 16-week 2013 Tips television campaign generated approximately 660,000 unique visitors, 900,000 total visits, and 1,390,000 page views for the Tips campaign website.
    • These findings may help campaign planners forecast the likely impact of targeted advertising efforts on consumers’ use of campaign-specific websites.
    • Results demonstrated that a targeted digital strategy can help drive consumers to online resources promoted by the campaign.

 

  • Increasing the Dose of Television Advertising in a National Antismoking Media Campaign: Results from a Randomised Field Trialexternal icon
    Published: December 16, 2015
    Summary: The effectiveness of higher doses of the 2013 Tips®  campaign media (i.e. 2400 vs. 800 quarterly GRPs) demonstrated increased quit attempts among people who smoke, especially among African Americans.
    • Non-smokers reported increased conversations with family or friends about the dangers of smoking and had greater knowledge of smoking-related diseases at the higher media dose.
    • This is the first study to demonstrate the effectiveness of a national tobacco education campaign using randomization at the media market level.
  • Impact of a National Tobacco Education Campaign on Weekly Numbers of Quitline Calls and Website Visitors—United States, March 4-June 23, 2013
    Published:     September 20, 2013
    Summary: The 16-week Tips From Former Smokers® campaign in 2013 led to 151,536 additional quitline calls and nearly 2.8 million additional unique Tips website visitors above pre-campaign levels.
    • During the 16-week campaign, the average weekly calls to the national quitline portal 1-800-QUIT-NOW and Tips website visitors increased by 75% and almost 38-fold, respectively, compared to the 4 weeks before the campaign, and quickly decreased almost to pre-campaign levels once the campaign was off the air.
    • The results suggest that emotionally evocative tobacco education media campaigns featuring graphic images of the health effects of smoking can increase quitline calls and website visits, and that the campaign effects decrease rapidly once the campaign is off air.
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2012 Tips Campaign

    • Using a simulation model, the report shows that 1, 5 and 10-year antitobacco media campaigns, like the Tips From Former Smokers campaign, all yield net cost savings within 10 years. Multiyear campaigns yield substantially higher rates of population health benefits and cost savings than a 1-year campaign.
    • The report estimated that a year-round national smoking cessation campaign of 10 years in duration would produce net savings of $10.4, $5.1, $1.4, $3.6 and $0.2 billion from the societal, all-payer, Medicare, Medicaid and private insurer perspectives, respectively, and could prevent 23,500 smoking-attributable deaths over the first 10 years.

 

    • Effects were found in several specific groups of pregnant women including adolescents under 18 years of age, Medicaid-insured women, and women with less than a high school education.
    • This is the first study to examine the association between an evidence-based population-level smoking cessation campaign, and smoking cessation among pregnant women.

 

    • This study demonstrates that the 2012 Tips campaign was associated with significant increases in quitline calls in 46 states and the District of Columbia.

 

    • The findings suggest that when assessing the effects of a tobacco education media campaign promoting a quitline resource in states with multiple numbers and nationally, it is important to consider effects on all quitline numbers to fully estimate the campaign’s effects on quitline utilization.
    • In California, Tips® GRPs correlated positively with calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW and to 1-800-NO-BUTTS.

 

    • Information-seeking behaviors occurred up to several weeks after ad exposure.
    • Web behavior data from online panels were useful for examining exposure and behavioral responses to digital campaign ads.

 

    • The Tips campaign was estimated to account for more than 170,000 additional calls to 1–800-QUIT-NOW during the campaign, and if all ads were tagged with 1–800-QUIT-NOW, approximately 140,000 additional calls would have been generated.
    • For campaign planners, these results make it possible to estimate 1) the likely impact of tobacco prevention media buys and 2) the additional quitline capacity needed at the national level should future campaigns of similar scale use 1–800-QUIT-NOW taglines exclusively.

 

  • Cessation Outcomes Among Quitline Callers in Three States During a National Tobacco Education Campaign
    Published:     July 16, 2015
    Summary: People who sought smoking cessation treatment from quitlines during the Tips® campaign achieved similar cessation outcomes, despite the possibility that they might be less committed to quitting. Enrolled callers had similar results, regardless of campaign exposure levels.
    • Antismoking mass media campaigns such as Tips are valuable for increasing exposure to quitlines, increasing the caller’s likelihood of making a quit attempt, and eventually quitting tobacco altogether.
    • The proportion of uninsured callers was higher during the Tips campaign than in 2011.
    • In 2012, people who were aware of the campaign were slightly more likely to be non-Hispanic Blacks, younger than age 55 years, and uninsured compared with people who were not aware of the campaign.
    • No differences were found in gender, age, race/ethnicity, preferred language, or education when comparing callers during the Tips campaign to 2011 callers.

 

    • With total 2012 campaign costs of about $48 million, Tips spent approximately $480 per smoker who quit, $2,819 per premature death prevented, and $393 per year of life saved.

 

    • The number of quitline callers and callers who received counseling and/or nicotine replacement therapies increased by 88.6% (91,911 during Tips in 2012 vs. 48,738 in 2011) and 70.8% (69,254 during Tips in 2012 vs. 40,546 in 2011), respectively.
  • Effect of the First Federally Funded US Antismoking National Media Campaignexternal icon
    Published: September 9, 2013
    Summary: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the first-ever paid national tobacco education campaign, Tips From Former Smokers® (Tips®), for 3 months in March 2012. The Tips campaign shows real people living with serious long-term health effects from smoking and secondhand smoke exposure.
    • An estimated 1.64 million Americans made a quit attempt and approximately 100,000 smokers were expected to stay quit.
    • An estimated 6 million nonsmokers talked with friends and family about the dangers of smoking, and an estimated 4.7 million additional nonsmokers recommended cessation services to their friends and family.
  • Increases in Quitline Calls and Smoking Cessation Website Visitors During a National Tobacco Education Campaign—March 19–June 10, 2012
    Published: August 31, 2012
    Summary: This report indicates that an evidence-based national tobacco education media campaign with adequate reach and frequency led to significant increases in calls to a national portal for state quitlines and unique visitors to a cessation website.
    • Total call volume to the 1-800-QUIT-NOW quitline during the 2012 Tips From Former Smokers® campaign was 365,194 calls, compared to 157,675 calls during the corresponding 12 weeks in 2011, for a total of 207,519 additional calls, or a 132% increase.
    • Compared to the corresponding weeks in 2011, weekly increases in calls to the quitline during the campaign ranged from 86% to 160%.
    • The website received 629,898 unique visitors during the 2012 campaign, compared to 119,327 during the same period in 2011, for a total of 510,571 additional unique visitors, or a 428% increase.
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For questions related to Tips® evaluation survey data, please send inquiries to tobaccomediacampaign@cdc.gov.

Page last reviewed: March 1, 2021
Content source: Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention