[Much of the information in this presentation was published as “‘Garbage face’: a managed care organisation’s response to tobacco use” (Tobacco Control1996;5:259–261). The following explains what happened after this article was written.]

At the time of the aforementioned article, HealthPartners was about to test market a day-to-day guide (calendar) to help teenagers quit smoking. The organisation worked with students in two tenth-grade (aged 15–16) health classes in a suburban Minneapolis high school to test the calendar’s concepts. Students were presented with several questions about their attitudes toward smoking, which were displayed on a large screen along with multiple responses. Option Finder, an electronic polling system, allowed them to register their responses anonymously and see immediately …