Background: In 2006 The Cancer Council Western Australia was funded to develop new mass-media driven campaigns on passive smoking and children targeting the general adult population and regional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) populations. Funding was received in June 2006 with the campaigns to be delivered by the Council's Make Smoking History campaign by May 2007.

Strategy: Early stages in development involved literature review, expert input via ‘think tank' and development of concepts for testing with Indigenous and non-Indigenous smokers. Advertising developed was to be simple and “real”, depicting scenarios and modelling behaviours that would resonate with the key target groups (parents and carers of children, adult family and friends and the community generally). Whilst experienced in mainstream campaigns, Make Smoking History covered new ground in planning and developing an ATSI campaign. Essential to its success was working through existing ATSI networks and developing new relationships to both identify ‘sounding boards' and build wide community support for the campaign and its messages. Collaboration contributed to the development of a successful campaign.

Conclusion: Initially, the challenges of developing and implementing new campaigns for Indigenous and non-Indigenous target groups within a short time-frame were overwhelming. Yet the experience has been extremely positive and a highly valuable learning opportunity that will assist future tobacco control efforts in WA and Australia. This work has also strengthened Cancer Council links with the ATSI health and welfare sector and it is hoped this may lead to further collaborative efforts in the future.