Smoking hot! Suffolk proves a winner for new quit smoking TV advert

Stoptober challenges smokers to give up cigarettes for 28 days in October, in a bid to help wean them of the nicotine for good.

After M&C Saatchi set out its location brief for filming of this year's advert, Screen Suffolk was able to secure the work entirely in the county thanks to its range of different landscapes.

The advert features people from different walks of life keeping a football up and passing it on from shot to shot, taking in towns, coastline, parks and housing.

Screen Suffolk director Karen Everett said: 'The production thought they'd have to film in London and perhaps travel quite extensively. But when we started talking about locations it looked obvious that this was one we could wrangle entirely into the county.

Suffolk's coast was one of the locations for the filming (Image: Archant)

'The next challenge was meeting the locations brief in just two days. We took the production on a recce – from location to location until the right ones were found and the full brief was met. It's great to see them on film now.'

Among some of the familiar locations are Alexandra Park, Alderman Park, a fake bus stop in Alf Ramsey Way, a river path, Cocks Lane, Bulstrode Road, Ranelagh Road and a town centre car park, all in Ipswich.

The People's Community Garden in Ipswich, run by ActivLives, and the Southwold seafront, harbour and town rounded out the locations.

Location manager Ben Carter said: 'Working in Suffolk was so much easier than in London, especially because we had to get from location to location in such short timeframes.

Organisers of the campaign hope it will persuade people to give up smoking (Image: Archant)

'Everything we needed was in Ipswich and then Southwold, each location pretty much around the corner from the last.

'Finding that sort of variety packed into small areas was eye opening for me. The brief was that our locations should be representative of a broad cross-section of England – all of which Suffolk could do for us. There are few places in the country that could have managed that.'

Mrs Everett added: 'The fact is Suffolk is perfect in a situation like this – with the full variety of locations available within a small area. It's not congested here, and we really know our patch, so we can show location managers hidden corners of the county.'

The football used in the Stoptober film (Image: Archant)

Locations in Ipswich and Southwold were used for Stoptober (Image: Archant)

Stoptober with ipswich waterfront in the background (Image: Archant)