Tobacco Free Florida

Since the Tobacco Free Florida Campaign was founded in February 2008, The four main programmatic goals have been:

• Promote cessation of tobacco use
• Prevent the initiation of tobacco use among youth and adults
• Eliminate secondhand smoke exposure
• Reduce tobacco-related health disparities

Since 1989, Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services have been actively involved in the prevention of tobacco use. In 1997, Florida settled a large lawsuit with a large tobacco industry and was granted $11.3 billion to assist with Medicaid costs incurred by health care services for smokers. As a result of the lawsuit, the Tobacco Pilot Program was launched by the Florida Department of Health to help educate the youth on the impacts of tobacco use. When Florida's legislation decided to reduce funding to $1 million annually five years later after the Tobacco Pilot Program was launched, Floridians passed a constitutional amendment in 2006, which requires an annual appropriation of 15% of the gross 2005 tobacco settlement fund (adjusted for inflation) to provide money for a statewide tobacco education and prevention program.

In 2007, the Zimmerman Agency[3] was awarded $17.1 million contract to conduct a statewide social marketing, media, and public relations campaign. The Tobacco Free Florida brand was created as the department's health communication intervention component. The Tobacco Free Florida Campaign helps thousands of Floridians quit using smoke and smokeless tobacco products through the use of TV, radio, print and social media. It operates on a budget of about $65 million per year.[4]

The campaign started in 2008 was created to discourage the use of tobacco among all Floridians but with a specific emphasis on youth ages 11–17, adults ages 18–24, chronic disease sufferers, pregnant women, low-income households, parents and small businesses. Using English, Spanish and Haitian Creole media, the campaign is able to target all audiences through various communication channels. The Tobacco Free Florida and Quitline[5] commercials have become famous through the years of their existence. Tobacco Free Florida chooses to create existing high-impact spots with "messages that elicit strong emotions response, such as personal testimonials and strong viscerally negative content." For example, a commercial showed a brain cut in half to show the clot that has formed due to cigarette smoke. Billboards and posters are used to display images of unhealthy lungs, millions of cigarette buds collected and alarming statistics regarding tobacco use.

Along with radio, commercial and social media Tobacco Free Florida has several ground work initiatives, including Smokifier Vans that travel the state visiting festivals, sporting events, and co-branded partners (YMCA and Walmart). The vans have age-progression software photo booths that ages visitors as smokers and nonsmokers allowing Floridians to experience the physical effects of smoking.

Tobacco Free Florida has successfully established partnerships with all of the following sports organizations:

• Tampa Bay Rays
• Tampa Bay Lightning
• Florida Panthers
• Miami Heat
• Orlando Magic
• Miami Dolphins
• Florida State University
• University of Florida
• Bethune Cookman University
• University of South Florida
• University of Central Florida

In 2010, Tobacco Free Florida purchased a package of ads for $447,992.50 to be run multiple times before, during and after the Super Bowl Game. The ads were created with a smoking cessation message intended to target adult smokers. A focus group was run on people who had seen the commercials and concluded that people did not care that they were at an increased risk of dying from cancer or heart disease but they did care that every year smoking leaves 31,000 children fatherless. The overall impact of the ad was to target adult smokers to think about their tobacco use affecting their children and family.

• Official website