In Ireland, smoking is the leading cause of avoidable death. The QUIT campaign encourages smokers to quit and signposts to evidence-based HSE stop smoking services.
The HSE QUIT campaign is partnering with RTÉ to sponsor the Irish men’s soccer team’s hopeful journey to the UEFA European Championships in summer 2024.
The Irish team are in group B and need to overcome some difficult opponents like World Cup runners-up France, previous European winners Greece and the high flying Dutch. The matches will draw a big audience, including the key target audience for QUIT - smokers aged between 25 and 45.
Ad breaks during live sports are often unconscious triggers for people to smoke. We want to disrupt this behaviour and find a way to keep the viewer engaged and distracted from smoking.
Martina Blake, the national lead of the HSE’s Tobacco Free Ireland Programme, said; “It’s all too easy to see smoking as an individual choice. However, the reality is smoking is highly addictive and takes control of people’s lives. We know most smokers want to quit and our quit campaign and service provides proven support for every step of the journey. This partnership will help current and future quitters to overcome smoking their addiction, one craving at a time and help those who want to quit find out how and where they can get that expert support to help them along their journey.”
The QUIT campaign and service have successfully supported thousands of smokers to quit smoking since 2011 and since then smoking prevalence has reduced from 23% to 18%.
Gerry McGuinness, Sponsorship Manager with RTÉ, says; “RTÉ is delighted that QUIT.ie has chosen to sponsor the broadcast of the men's senior team qualifying matches for UEFA Euro 2024. Using clever sponsorship idents to help quitting smoking during the matches on RTÉ is a great fit. I look forward to seeing the first transmission of the sponsorship around the Irish match against Greece on RTÉ 2 from 7pm. A win by the team will complete wins all around for those who want to quit smoking in Ireland.”
Partnership details:
The partnership includes 10” and 7” stings that top and tail each ad break on RTÉ before, during and after each match.
By giving the audience a task at the start of each break we hope to encourage a ‘don’t break’ instead of a ‘smoke break’, giving current quitters support to tackle smoking cravings but also inspiring future quitters to take back control with the support of the HSE QUIT service, one craving at a time.
Each break sting will have a different task for the audience to do – from peeling an orange, to learning how to juggle, emptying the dishwasher or solving an anagram. The closing break sting includes a message about the support QUIT.ie can offer smokers.
The first game of this partnership is against Greece tonight and Ireland are playing Gibraltar on Monday, June 19th.
The sponsorship deal was brokered by Core Sponsorship and Spark Foundry.
View a sample of the stings here.
Take Back Control
In January of this year, the HSE launched a new phase of the QUIT campaign and urged people who smoke to ‘Take Back Control’ by quitting smoking for good. Watch the Take Back Control TV ad here.
‘Take Back Control’ focuses on the key insight around the relationship smokers have with smoking and their cigarettes. People who smoke told us that they know that smoking is bad for their health, but that the thought of quitting makes them think of what they might be losing. As well as relieving stress or boredom and helping them socialise, people told us that cigarettes are reliable. They are always there for them, like a friend. However, when they finally take the step to QUIT for good, they see it differently.
Last updated on: 16 / 06 / 2023
