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cdc.gov

Tips From Former Smokers

Also: Tips · Tips From Former Smokers (Tips)

CDC's first federally funded national paid anti-smoking media campaign, launched March 2012. Real former smokers describe living with smoking-related disease, with ads directing viewers to 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

Years
2012–now
Country
United States
Topic
Tobacco
Asks people to
Seek helpStopTalk to someone
Strategy
Cessation service linkFear appealTestimonial
Channel
OutdoorPrintRadioSearchSocial (paid)TV
Audience
Adults

Evidence

ExperimentalPositive

Nationally representative cohort before and after the 3-month 2012 campaign: quit attempts rose from 31.1% to 34.8% (12% relative). Estimated 1.64 million additional quit attempts and 220,000 sustained quitters at follow-up. 2013 randomized dose trial: 67 of 190 media markets randomly assigned triple TV weight; quit attempts 38.8% vs 34.9% in standard-dose markets (11% relative), with a larger gap among African-American smokers (50.9% vs 31.8%) (McAfee 2017). Quitline studies: weekly 1-800-QUIT-NOW calls rose 75% during Tips 2013 (CDC MMWR 2013); each extra 100 weekly GRPs added about 89 calls per area code when the ad ended on the quitline number (Davis 2015); about 2.1 million extra calls 2012-2023 (Mann 2025).

Sponsor (who paid)

Credits (who made it)

Executions (individual ads)

Sources

  1. McAfee T et al. Effect of the first federally funded US antismoking national media campaign. Lancet 2013;382(9909):2003-11 evaluation · 2013 · DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61686-4 · PMID 24029166
  2. Tips From Former Smokers campaign site sponsor
  3. Murphy-Hoefer R et al. Impact of the Tips From Former Smokers Campaign on Population-Level Smoking Cessation, 2012-2015. Prev Chronic Dis 2018 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.5888/pcd15.180051 · PMID 29862960
  4. Neff LJ et al. Evaluation of the National Tips From Former Smokers Campaign: the 2014 Longitudinal Cohort. Prev Chronic Dis 2016 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.5888/pcd13.150556 · PMID 27010845
  5. Zhang L et al. Changes in Quitline Caller Characteristics During a National Tobacco Education Campaign. Nicotine Tob Res 2015 evaluation · 2015 · DOI 10.1093/ntr/ntu271 · PMID 25561612
  6. McAfee T et al. Increasing the dose of television advertising in a national antismoking media campaign: results from a randomised field trial. Tob Control 2017 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2015-052517 · PMID 26678518
  7. Murphy-Hoefer R et al. Association Between the Tips From Former Smokers Campaign and Smoking Cessation Among Adults, United States, 2012-2018. Prev Chronic Dis 2020 evaluation · 2020 · DOI 10.5888/pcd17.200052 · PMID 32857030
  8. Mann NH et al. The Long-Term Impact of the Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign on Calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW, 2012-2023. Nicotine Tob Res 2025 evaluation · 2025 · DOI 10.1093/ntr/ntae164 · PMID 39044313
  9. Davis K et al. The Impact of the Tips from Former Smokers® Campaign on Reducing Cigarette Smoking Relapse. J Smok Cessat 2022 evaluation · 2022 · DOI 10.1155/2022/3435462 · PMID 36568904
  10. Shrestha SS et al. Cost Effectiveness of the Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign-U.S., 2012-2018. Am J Prev Med 2021 evaluation · 2021 · DOI 10.1016/j.amepre.2020.10.009 · PMID 33455819
  11. England L et al. Evaluation of a federally funded mass media campaign and smoking cessation in pregnant women: a population-based study in three states. BMJ Open 2017 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016826 · PMID 29259054
  12. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Increases in quitline calls and smoking cessation website visitors during a national tobacco education campaign--March 19-June 10, 2012. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2012 evaluation · 2012 · PMID 22932300
  13. CDC. Impact of a national tobacco education campaign on weekly numbers of quitline calls and website visitors--United States, March 4-June 23, 2013. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2013 evaluation · 2013 · PMID 24048152
  14. Davis KC et al. The Dose-Response Relationship Between Tobacco Education Advertising and Calls to Quitlines in the United States, March-June, 2012. Prev Chronic Dis 2015 evaluation · 2015 · DOI 10.5888/pcd12.150157 · PMID 26542143
  15. Zhang L et al. The Influence of State-Specific Quitline Numbers on Call Volume During a National Tobacco Education Campaign Promoting 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Nicotine Tob Res 2016 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.1093/ntr/ntw100 · PMID 27073208
  16. Zhang L et al. Impact of U.S. Antismoking TV Ads on Spanish-Language Quitline Calls. Am J Prev Med 2018 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.1016/j.amepre.2018.05.025 · PMID 30241616
  17. Vickerman KA et al. Cessation Outcomes Among Quitline Callers in Three States During a National Tobacco Education Campaign. Prev Chronic Dis 2015 evaluation · 2015 · DOI 10.5888/pcd12.150024 · PMID 26182145
  18. Davis KC et al. Perceived effectiveness of antismoking ads and association with quit attempts among smokers: evidence from the Tips From Former Smokers campaign. Health Commun 2016;32(8):931-938 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.1080/10410236.2016.1196413 · PMID 27435919
  19. Prochaska JJ et al. The 2016 Tips From Former Smokers campaign: associations with quit intentions and quit attempts among smokers with and without mental health conditions. Nicotine Tob Res 2019;21(5):576-583 evaluation · 2019 · DOI 10.1093/ntr/nty241 · PMID 30496491
  20. Davis KC et al. Does digital video advertising increase population-level reach of multimedia campaigns? Evidence from the 2013 Tips From Former Smokers campaign. J Med Internet Res 2016;18(9):e235 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.2196/jmir.5683 · PMID 27627853
  21. Davis KC et al. Association between media doses of the Tips From Former Smokers campaign and cessation behaviors and intentions to quit among cigarette smokers, 2012-2015. Health Educ Behav 2017;45(1):52-60 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1177/1090198117709316 · PMID 28497703

Research notes

Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Arnold (MediaPost, 10 September 2013, on the 2012 campaign 'by Boston-based Arnold'), RTI International (CBS News: quitline calls rose when ads aired, 'according to independent scientific research institute RTI International'). Corrected 2026-10-22: Arnold dated 2012; agencies for later years not checked. Pull yearly executions from the Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center (advertiser: CDC). CDC publishes later-year evaluations; attach them. Further credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Golin Harris (2015 Effie case HE_2015_9032, read via Wayback, credits 'Arnold Worldwide *Lead Agency' and 'Golin Harris'); RTI International (USAspending: CDC task orders 'Evaluation of CDC's National Tobacco Education Campaign', first HHSD2002007200160028 from 12 Sept 2012, further orders through 2025; CBS News remains a second source). Corrected 2026-10-22: RTI dated 2012- and sourced to USAspending; the public-health-pr queue proposed 2013- from order ...0029 (Aug 2013), but order ...0028 starts Sept 2012. Lead, not credited: CDC awarded Ketchum Inc. a 'National Tobacco Education Campaign' task order, 29 Sept 2026 to 28 Sept 2027, $64.99M (https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_75D30126F21224_7523_47QRAA23D0052_4732); PRWeek (article 1971842) reports it as a Golin Ketchum win with a $65M minimum. Continuity with the Tips brand is not stated. Added 2026-10-22 (openalex-deep queue; DOI checked on Crossref and PMID via NCBI esummary 2026-10-22): Neff 2016 (2014 cohort: exposure associated with quit attempts, OR 1.17; est. 1.83 million additional quit attempts and 104,000 sustained quits) and Zhang 2015 (quitline callers up 72% vs 2011). Evidence unchanged. Evidence updated 2026-10-22: level quasi-experimental -> experimental on McAfee 2017, a randomized field trial of the campaign's media dose as it aired (compares higher vs standard dose, not campaign vs none). Outcome kept positive. Reuse terms checked 2026-10-23 by an AI research pass for #47; not yet reviewed by a person.

Record cases/cdc-tips-from-former-smokers.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign