Posted 3 Oct, 2018
More than 80,000 people in the Gippsland and Latrobe Valley regions have been urged to quit smoking as part of Quit Victoria’s latest public education campaign, created by local Brett Tippet and his team from Spectrum Productions.
It’s Time, the winning entrant of the Pitch to Quit competition, which explores the way smoking cuts short peoples’ lives, ran across digital advertising platforms in July.
The campaign has been targeting smokers aged 25-49 from the Gippsland and Latrobe Valley regions via Facebook and YouTube advertising.
Quit Victoria Director Sarah White said Gippsland smokers were highly motivated to quit, and hoped the It’s Time campaign helped prompt them to take action.
“Two in three Gippsland smokers have told us they intend to quit in the next six months, with one in three saying they think about quitting every day. We hope this fantastic new local digital campaign has helped boost that motivation even further,” Dr White said.
“We know quitting can be tough, but we want smokers to realise that they don’t have to do it alone. You can get practical, friendly support from the Quitline on 13 78 48 and there is plenty of useful information on the Quit website. You can also speak to your GP or pharmacist.”
Meanwhile, Traralgon man Grady Just last week had the rare chance to go behind the scenes on a professional advertising shoot—based on his own concept—after being selected as “Quit’s Pick” in the Pitch to Quit competition in March this year.
Over two days last week, Grady’s ad concept Save a Life was recreated into a professional quality advertisement by a team of producers and actors. Quit Victoria plans to use the advertisement as part of a campaign in 2019.
Grady and his brother, Toby, who directed the impressive video entry, were thrilled to attend the shoot in Little River.
“Being part of the shoot was very exciting for me. It was the first time I’ve ever been behind the scenes on a professional production like that,” Grady, who works as an electrical draftsman, said.
“My family enjoys filmmaking as a hobby, so to see how the professionals do it, and use things like drone shots, was really interesting.”
In coming up with the original concept, Grady, 23, said he wanted to create a positive and new way to encourage smokers to quit.
“I was just trying to think of how else you can encourage smokers to quit. For years they’ve been told that smoking kills but it seems like that’s not enough to get the message through to some people. I wanted to turn that around and show it as a positive thing – that quitting smoking can actually save a life.”
Quit Victoria Director Dr Sarah White said the competition had been a fantastic way to discover exciting, fresh ideas from creative people in the Latrobe Valley region.
“Quit Victoria has been running advertising campaigns for over 30 years – we really enjoyed seeing some really amazing new concepts to help motivate smokers to quit,” Dr White said.
“Grady’s concept resonated with the Quit team because it’s empowering yet simple. It puts the control back in the hands of the smoker and lays bare the biggest reason why people should quit – to save their life. We want to test this as a new approach to see if it resonates with smokers.”
Pitch to Quit was run by the Gippsland Primary Health Network (PHN) as part of the Smokefree Latrobe Initiative, funded by the Victorian Government through the $27 million Latrobe Health Innovation Zone. The competition was run in partnership with Latrobe Health Assembly, the Victorian Government and Quit Victoria.
If you would like to arrange an interview with Brett, Grady or Dr White, please contact Shannon Crane 03 9514 6406.
Quit Victoria is a partnership between VicHealth, the State Government of Victoria, and Cancer Council Victoria. For more information, visit: www.quit.org.au
