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National advertisements which feature graphic images of people living with the effects of smoking-related diseases are working pretty well to prompt smokers to leave the habit, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2010, the "Tips From Former Smokers" ad campaign, doubled the number of callers to 1-800-QUIT-NOW, a hotline which connects the callers to the quit line in their state.

Also, the ads are believed to be the reason behind 417,000 or more number of people logging into smokefree.gov just 12 weeks after they started being displayed. The agency noted, that this was thrice the number of people who usually log in. Smokefree.gov is a federal website that helps people quit smoking.

The report suggests that if the number of responses continue to grow, at least 500,000 people could try to quit smoking due to the ads.

"These initial results suggest that the campaign will help even more people quit than we had hoped, exceeding our already high expectations," CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in an agency news release. "More than two-thirds of all smokers want to quit. People who smoke die sooner and live sicker. This campaign is saving lives and saving money."

Smoking is the cause behind the highest number of preventable deaths in U.S. The CDC report says that the ad campaign will make 50,000 people quit smoking successfully, and that could lead to savings of up to $70 million in medical and productivity costs.

In one year, Americans spend $96 billion on smoking related diseases, according to the news release.

The report concluded that spending $54 million on the ad campaign is worth the effort when compared to the $10 billion that the tobacco industry spends each year for their marketing.