News article
The Ministry of Health has contracted VMLY&R in partnership with Native Voice and Bright Sunday to deliver a multi-platform, multi-year media campaign to encourage smokers to quit smoking.
The Government’s vision is for a smokefree Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan launched on 9 December 2021, the plan outlines a range of actions that will encourage smokers to quit smoking and radically change the smoking environment to make it easy for all New Zealanders to live smokefree.
Smoking rates continue to drop, but significant inequities prevail. The overall daily smoking rate is 9.4%, but 24% of Māori women and 20.5% of Māori men smoke daily, and 15.9% Pacific women and 16.9% of Pacific men are daily smokers.
The existing campaign, Quitstrong finishes in June 2022. The new campaign start in the second half of 2022. It will focus on priority audiences, young Māori women (18–30 years), Māori, Pacific peoples and smokers with mental health needs.
This work will complement other health promotion work including a campaign to prevent youth from vaping and health promotion activities, including community action, Smokefree Generation and World Smokefree May.
The Ministry’s budget for this work is $4,300,000 over the next four financial years.