If I Ruled the World...

For some people, a government’s use of commercial advertising formats to change public attitudes and behaviours is a new thing - what springs to mind is usually graphic drink-driving TVCs and messages such as “seatbelts save lives”. These are a generally accepted feature of the advertising landscape these days, although this writer can till remember similar “do good” campaigns dating back to the 70’s (remember “only lazy people litter”?). Taking that further back, and evidence can be found of mass-persuasion campaigns being run as early as Ancient Rome, and as infamously as the work of Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Hermann Goering (now being shown to have close parallels with the current Bush administration!). Using advertising to achieve government-decreed objectives is nothing new.

Extremists such as Goering aside, it’s difficult to argue with the underlying premise of such advertising. Recent campaigns all seek to achieve noble objectives - to reduce racism, increase physical fitness, reduce crashes at intersections or accidents in the home, increase environmentally-friendly behaviour, and of course the perennial drink-driving campaigns. But just as these campaigns seem unlikely to ever go away, so too does the criticism periodically leveled at them. The criticism often targets their tough approach (although few know that the LTSA campaigns have strict guidelines restricting the blood and gore!); their unlikely chances of success (stop racism in 30secs? I think not); or simply the amount of taxpayers’ money being spent on campaigns which can be difficult to prove effective.

This latter point is a key one, and is worth discussing - surely, if these campaigns can prove to really achieve something significant, then their proven worth and justification must be that much higher? Of course, Marketing Magazine readers will accept that advertising can prove tremendously effective - but shifting stock from the supermarket shelves is a somewhat different task to reducing people’s attitudes towards Asian drivers. Add the fact that government campaigns are often promoting unappealing behaviours and it’s clear that this sector of the advertising art is unique, and uniquely challenging, in many ways.

So it’s worth highlighting the success that two such campaigns have had in achieving worthwhile objectives. In 1999 Singleton, Ogilvy & Mather was commissioned by the Ministry of Education to encourage low socio-economic parents of young children to become more involved in their children’s education. When Synovate surveyed the target audience 18 months into the campaign, the results (compared to a pre-launch benchmark survey) showed that the “Feed the Mind” campaign had led these parents to:

• place more importance on their children’s learning;
• become more willing, and able, to help their children read, write and do maths, and;
• become less concerned about “doing the wrong thing”.

In particular, 55% of parents recalling the campaign said that as a result they had done more to help their children to learn.

The second example is the “BreastScreen Aotearoa” campaign developed by Haines Recruitment Advertising for the Ministry of Health in 1999. The campaign objective was to encourage breast-screening amongst women aged 50 to 64 years - a diverse target audience, linked only by age and gender, and with immense emotional and cultural issues tied up with the subject. Tracking research conducted by Synovate revealed that the campaign not only achieved high awareness (up to 90% unprompted recall), but also a high level of action - over 20% of the target audience stating that they had acted as a result of the campaign. Actual calls to the 0800 number exceeded targets by 38%.

Not all such advertising campaigns will be as effective as these, but the argument questioning the effect they may have is as patchy as the realm of advertising itself. The bigger issue at hand must surely be that of exactly which opinions and behaviours are to be promoted in this way, not the methods or media chosen.

Of course, if I was Prime Minister, there’d be no such concerns - I fail to see what could be wrong with the campaigns I would seek to run. So, in the event of my election, any readers wishing to develop the following campaigns had better get started: the public rejection of redneck talkback radio; increased courtesy to cyclists; subsidised coffee; the promotion of boutique breweries; and the mandatory participation in market research surveys….