The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with protecting public health, ensuring equitable access to health care and improving the health of residents of the Tar Heel State.

One of its long-term efforts has been to urge North Carolinians to stop smoking, including through the use of a hotline known as QuitlineNC providing free cessation services to any North Carolina resident who needs help quitting tobacco.

Hotline call volumes dropped significantly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The health department looked to boost QuitlineNC calls and website traffic through the “Quit and Live” campaign, created by Clean Advertising and Design. The campaign won the silver award for Tiny But Mighty among advocacy groups in the Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards 2023.

The ad, which featured two cartoon lungs—one healthy, one dead—read “You can lose one of your lungs and survive,” looking to draw attention to the risk of living with a debilitating disease. It was displayed in videos, digital ads and paid social media that targeted people in high-density smoking counties and included English and Spanish versions.

During the two-month outreach effort, the campaign resulted in a 12.3% increase in average call volume, while site traffic increased 63% year over year, according to Clean Advertising and Design. The company reported that traffic to the Spanish homepage increased 13,500% year over year, while Spanish-language pageviews increased 2,461% and unique page views rose 3,293%.