Messages, Strategies, & Outcomes: An Assessment of the Tips Campaign in Kentucky

Nicky Lewis, Amanda Bucher, Tristan Ntego, Amanda Thaxton Wiggins, Chris Finnegan, Lacy Madden, Jennifer Reynolds, Amanda Fallin-Bennett
Messages, Strategies, & Outcomes: An Assessment of the Tips Campaign in Kentucky
International Journal of Addiction Nursing Publish Ahead of Print, July 16, 2026. | DOI: 10.1097/JAN.0000000000000712

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Tips from Former Smokers (Tips) campaign has been used to increase awareness of and accessibility to smoking cessation resources. However, there is a gap in understanding the relationship between health communication campaigns, dissemination tactics, and evaluation metrics—especially among rural populations—regarding assessments of campaign effectiveness. The current study analyzed the key performance indicators of a Tips campaign flight across the state of Kentucky in 2024. We found that Tips messages featuring positive outcomes had the highest video completion rates. Calls to the quitline increased during and after the campaign, and urban communities generally outperformed rural communities on exposure and engagement key performance indicators, except for video completion rates and click-through rate. Findings are discussed in light of the national Tips campaign ending, with special consideration of the importance of health communication message design in rural compared with urban communities.