Stoptober: Stoptober: a radical new way to get England to quit smoking

Stoptober is a public health intervention created through marketing. It has been used to save thousands of lives in England and been adopted by clinicians internationally. Every October for four years the initiative challenged smokers to quit for 28 consecutive days from October 1, with the evidence-based promise that if they made it the whole way through, they would be 'five times more likely to quit' forever. The campaign provided tools and messages to mobilise 'a herd' effect more typically seen in January when people start new health regimes. This case study provides evidence that Stoptober grew in impact with 65,000 more quitters in year four than year one and a total 1.5m quit attempts driven by the communications. The short-term ROMI was estimated at 2.85 for every 1 invested.